Livingston manager David Martindale expects Bruce Anderson to be even more desperate to get a goal when he faces former club Aberdeen at Pittodrie.
Martindale is working on improving the 23-year-old’s all-round game but he does not want to temper the striker’s goalscoring instincts.
Anderson scored his sixth goal for Livingston in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat by Rangers and will be looking to net against the Dons for the second time this season on Wednesday.
“Bruce came into the team to score goals for us, basically,” Martindale said. “He is a number nine and we have probably lacked that since Lyndon (Dykes) left, somebody who is going to bang in with double figures every season.
“Brucey has come in and filled that gap but there is still a lot of development and progression to be done with Brucey and Brucey knows that.
“I am fairly happy but I genuinely feel there is a lot more to come so I am going to keep pushing him and keep putting demands on Brucey to give us a wee bit more on the park. Brucey understands that, he is still a young player.
“That’s him up to, I think, six goals in all competitions. I say ‘I think’, I know because he never shuts up about it.”
Martindale feels Anderson is a throwback to an age when strikers were all about scoring goals.
“You go back to older strikers, Brucey for me is a penalty-box striker so it’s up to us to get those controlled entries into the opposition box because that’s where Brucey comes alive,” he said.
“There’s other aspects that we work on outside the box to turn him into an all-round number nine
“When Lyndon came, his best attributes were outside the box and we had to work extremely hard to get Lyndon inside the box and get his goalscoring opportunities, and Lyndon has done that now.
“It’s the reverse psychology with Brucey but it’s nice to have a genuine number nine who enjoys scoring goals.
“Everyone enjoys scoring goals but there’s a slight difference when you have a genuine number nine who is desperate to score goals, and that’s what we have brought to the club.”
Anderson netted three times for Aberdeen but all but four of his 39 appearances came off the bench.
“It will probably give Brucey that wee bit extra motivation,” Martindale said.
“It always seems to go against you when you come up against your former players. They always have that wee bit extra motivation.
“Last time we played Aberdeen it was Brucey that got the goal and he will be gong back to Pittodrie with a point to prove.”
