Dundee’s Greg Stewart has set his sights on scoring a score of goals this season.
The 25-year-old has been a stand-out performer for the Dark Blues in what is his first season as a full-time player after joining from Cowdenbeath in the summer.
He is arguably manager Paul Hartley’s best signing since he took over at Dens, yet he admits that at the start of the campaign he didn’t even know if he would be given a chance in the side.
Now though, he is one of the first on the team sheet and has set his sights high in the goal-scoring stakes.
He said: “I’d like to think I can get 20 goals this season.
“If someone had said that to me at the start of the season I wouldn’t have believed it.
“But if I play as many games as possible I think that’s achievable.
“I said double figures at the start of the season and I’ve managed to pass that, so who knows what can happen.
“When I first joined Dundee I didn’t know if I’d be playing every week so I wasn’t sure how it would go.
“I didn’t know if I’d be good enough or what to expect from full-time football.
“But thankfully I’ve managed to thrive on it and after getting into the team I’ve kicked on.
“I got a feel for it at the start of the season, I played the first two games but struggled a wee bit and the gaffer dropped me.
“But I watched and took everything in, so when I got back in I was just able to take it from there.
“I scored 18 goals last season for Cowdenbeath so if I could get up to 20 in the Premiership this season I’d be ecstatic.
“Aberdeen’s Adam Rooney is flying, he’s got 24 so far so it will be tough to catch him.”
The last time Dundee and the Dons met at Pittodrie, the two sides fought out a dramatic 3-3 draw.
However, Stewart admits the result felt like a defeat as the Dark Blues had been leading 3-1 with just three minutes of normal time remaining.
The striker admits it was a harsh lesson but one which the players have taken on board.
He said: “It was a great game the last time we played Aberdeen but it ended in disappointment for us.
“It felt like a defeat. When you’re 3-1 up with five minutes to go you should see it out but we didn’t do that. It was just a collapse.
“The manager wasn’t happy afterwards and he had a few words for the lads but we’ve not seen that too often from him.
“It was actually the best 30 minutes we’ve played this season, but the way we ended up drawing the game left us feeling like we lost it.
“We have tried to learn from it and I hope if we’re in that situation again we’ll have enough to see it out.
“We feel we’ve acquitted ourselves well against Aberdeen this season and there have been plenty of goals in the matches.
“Aberdeen are still flying and they are pushing Celtic all the way.
“They have taken advantage of Celtic’s slip up against St Johnstone by winning their match against Motherwell.
“I think they can go the distance, I don’t see why not, but Celtic have got stronger.
“They have improved since the start of the season, we noticed that when we played them the last time.
Dundee have an incredibly tough run-in before the split but Stewart insists the Dark Blues can still achieve a top six finish.
And he also didn’t rule out trying to catch near neighbours United who are currently seven points ahead of them in the Premiership table.
Stewart added: “With the boys we have in the dressing-room we believe we can get into the top six.
“Hamilton are slipping right now and we have games in hand on them so we could go into fifth place. “We play against all the top teams before the split so it’s going to be tough but we can do it.
“Can we catch United? I don’t know. We just want to get into the top six and see what happens from there.
“Catching them isn’t something we’ve thought about, but we’d love to get into a position where we can.
“We’ve not beaten them this season and we’d love to do that, but there are other games to look at before the derby comes around.
“They beat us on New Year’s Day and we got what we deserved that day. So when we play them again we’ll be looking to make up for it.”