MORTON midfielder Iain Wilson says he’s relished having his first full pre-season in nearly five years as he looks to build off the back of a stellar 2023/24 season back at Cappielow.

Wilson returned to Greenock last August, initially on loan from Queen of the South, before making the move permanent in January, that meant he’d remain on Sinclair Street until the end of this season.

Now he’s been able to enjoy getting a full summer’s training for the first time since joining Dunfermline back in 2020.

The classy midfielder had earned rave reviews with his performances alongside Alan Power and Grant Gillespie after getting up to speed from an ankle knock that had kept him out of the early stages of last season.

Now he’s looking forward to hitting the ground running this time around.

He told the Tele: “It’s been good for me to get a whole pre-season, and to stay fit for it. I’ve really enjoyed it.

“I hope that it’ll stand me in good stead for the season ahead, and that it’ll mean that I’m not struggling with niggles like I have in the last few years.

“I can only see it benefitting me, because it’s never good to be going into a season playing catch up.

“It’s never a good stage to get injured, purely because that’s the time you should be getting a base of your fitness, so it’s a case of needing to work that up during the season if you do pick one up.

“As a player it’s the old cliche that you typically don’t look forward to pre-season, but for me that wasn’t the case.

“I’d picked up that calf injury towards the end of last season and, having not played in a while, it’s been important for me to come in and get back playing again.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s Premier Sports Cup tie against Alloa Athletic, Wilson hopes that his side can end what has been a disappointing cup campaign on good terms.

He says that victory over a progress-chasing Wasps will help his side get a much needed confidence boost ahead of next Saturday’s league opener against Partick at Firhill.

He added: “It’s important that we don’t get beat again, we want to finish the group positively.

“We want to try and put in a good performance as well to match what will hopefully be a good result.

“It’ll be good to try and get some momentum and build a wee bit of confidence heading into the beginning of the league campaign.

“Thistle away is a tough game to start the season, so it’ll be good to go into that off the back of a win.”