Martin Scott is just one of a handful of Raith Rovers players who will find themselves back at old club Livingston and he is desperate to prove his career has moved in the right direction since moving to Fife.
Raith skipper Jason Thomson, defender Paul Watson, midfielder Liam Fox and striker Calum Elliot will join Scott in returning to Almondvale with very different loyalties to when they called the West Lothian ground home.
Scott is eager to stress that his second spell at Livingston, where he began as a youth, did not end with bad blood, but he still believes returning with his new Kirkcaldy employers will add some extra spice to the encounter.
He said: “It’s one of the fixtures this season I’m looking forward to. Obviously I played with Livingston last season and when you go back to a club you used to play for you always want to show them they were wrong to let you go.
“The gaffer there will still send me a wee text and I know quite a lot of the boys still there. I left on good terms but it would definitely be nice to go there and get three points.
“When it came down to the decision, I think I’ve come to a club that’s moving in the right direction. With the squad we’ve got I think we should be pushing for a top-four finish.
“There’s a few boys going back to Livingston. It will add a wee bit of added spice to the game. There’s a few others that will want to show they’ve come to a club moving in the right direction and they’ve made the right decision in moving to Raith Rovers.”
Scott and his team-mates may be convinced they are on the up at Stark’s Park but there have been a few reasons to doubt that so far this season.
Defeats by the same 4-0 score to Hearts, Dundee and, most recently last Friday, Rangers could dent even the most resolute of confidences, but the 28-year-old believes, in defeating Dumbarton, Alloa Athletic and Cowdenbeath, Rovers are still getting plenty right.
He added: “The teams we’ve played that we should be competing against and picking up points against are the teams around about us in the league and we’ve done well.
“Going into this game we need to bounce back from the Rangers game like we did from the Dundee defeat in the Cowdenbeath derby.
“We’re looking forward to Saturday’s game and to trying to bounce back as quickly as we can.
“It’s a tight division. You saw Dumbarton taking points off Hearts and I think other teams will take points off Hearts, Rangers and Hibs. If you can keep picking up points against teams that are at your level then you’ll do all right and the league will take care of itself.”
“We’ve had a couple of bad results against the top sides in the division, but I think when you look at Livingston they’ve maybe got a similar-sized budget to ourselves and I know they’ve got a good squad.
“But we’ve got a good squad as well and I think we should be competing.”
Scott has admitted they must learn lessons from the Rangers loss.
The former Ross County and Hibernian midfielder said: “For the first 15 minutes we were passing it well and they weren’t causing us any problems. The second goal changed the game a wee bit.”