St Johnstone defender Liam Gordon is hoping to give the elbow to his injury woes.
The Perth centre-back was handed a 70-minute run in the Colts’ 4-1 Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Challenge Cup loss to Cove Rangers.
And just four weeks after cracking his elbow in an agonising training ground fall, he’s staked a claim to return against Livingston tomorrow.
“It was good to get a run out – I felt good,” said Gordon.
“I only had two 45-minutes before I hurt myself in pre-season.
“I didn’t bother strapping the elbow against Cove. I didn’t want that.
“I know it is going to get bumped in games so I had to prepare myself for that.
“I actually went out of my way to do a few slide tackles to test it out. It felt good.
“I definitely feel 100% ready to play on Saturday if the manager wants me.”
Gordon (23) reckons his fitness hasn’t faltered despite the arm injury which ruled him out of a dismal Betfred Cup campaign and the 7-0 league opener to Celtic.
“I have done a lot of general fitness work, spinning on the bike every day and running for two weeks now.
“I trained on Monday for the first time since the injury but I haven’t lost any fitness over the last few weeks.
“It was horrendous timing with the injury. We had just got through the hardest part of pre-season.
“I was flying and the injury was so freakish.
“As I landed after a tackle in training my hand slipped and the whole weight of my body came down on it.
“It wasn’t so much the pain that was bothering me at the time. I knew right away I was going to miss games. It was just so frustrating.
“So playing 70 minutes against Cove was great.”
The young Saints side leaked three goals after Gordon was replaced.
But he said: “I was impressed with the young boys.
“There were a lot of new faces.
“They were brilliant and a credit to themselves. It was just Cove’s experience that came into it in the closing stages.”
Gordon admits he’s hoping to get the nod from boss Tommy Wright to face the Lions on home turf.
“I went through to watch the Celtic game and obviously it was far from ideal. We should have been much better.
“But we have a big game now against Livingston.
“We want to bounce back and get three points, nothing less.”