BACK-from-injury midfielder Alan Trouten is hoping to helping Ayr United put former side Airdrieonians to the sword after returning to action for Saturday’s 2-0 win against Dunfermline Athletic.

And manager Ian McCall praised the team following the impressive victory at East End Park which kept the Honest Men in joint top spot in Ladbrokes SPFL League One.

Trouten was making his first appearance since suffering a groin injury in the League Cup defeat away to Ross County last month.

The midfielder is now hoping to return to the starting line-up.

He was impressed with the weekend showing in Fife and said: “That was a well-deserved victory for us and hopefully it lays down a marker, although we know it’s still early days. Dunfermline have been tipped for the title so it was great to win there, especially since they have players like Mickael Antoine-Curier, who has played in the Premier Division and has a lot of experience. It was a superb goal from Alan Forrest, who is a great talent and regular first team football will help develop his game. It’s great he recently signed an extension to stay on. Jordan Preston also took his goal well and he has already scored a couple of times since coming back here on loan, “I know there’s competition for places and it was good to come off the bench on Saturday. Hopefully I can get back into the starting line-up. I look forward to the Airdrie game, you always enjoy games against your old teams. But we know how difficult it are also on a good run. But our target will be to win the game. The aim is to win the league or at the very least promotion through the playoffs. There’s a good spirit in the squad and Ian McCall is a good manager to work with.” McCall was encouraged with the performance.

But the manager is keeping his feet firmly on the ground and said: “It was a superb strike from Jordan Preston and Alan Forrest took his goal really well. We played some great football, especially in the first half and it shows how well the team are doing that last year’s top scorer in the league, Alan Trouten was on the bench. Of course it’s good to be at the top although my only bugbear is if we hadn’t conceded an injury-time goal at home to Forfar we would have been clear at the top of the table, The fans were once again magnificent and we are on a good run, hopefully the defeat at Albion Rovers on the first day will just go down as a blip. But there’s a long way to go we still have three games before we complete the first quarter.” He also insists the Airdrie game will be a test and added: “They had a good result at the weekend against Albion Rovers and I saw them the previous week when they played Cowdenbeath. They are a decent team but we are looking to go there and win. They have quite a good astro grass surface and we look forward to the game, hopefully we can keep our run going.”