David Carson accepted Livingston’s perilous position in the cinch Premiership with confidence when he opted for a move to the top-flight.

The 28-year-old midfielder departed cinch Championship side Inverness for the Lions on an 18-month contract last week after five years at the Highland club.

The Newcastle-born player made his debut in the 3-0 defeat by Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday which left David Martindale’s side without a league win in their last 16 attempts and six points behind second-bottom Ross County having played two games more.

Ahead of Wednesday night’s game against fourth-placed Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, where the in-form home team have lost only once in 10 games in all competitions, Carson conceded that some people may have questioned his decision to join a club whose Premiership future is fraught.

He said: “I agree, people will look at it like that but I am a player, I know the situation we are in and there is still a lot of football to play.

“I am coming in with the aim, like everyone else at this club, to keep us in the Premiership. That’s what I have come to do.

“As a player you always want to play at the highest level you can and there was an opportunity for me to do that.

“First and foremost it was that, I wanted to test myself and when I spoke to the manager it was a positive chat.

“I know the situation that we are in but we can affect that and hopefully we can start to pick up points.

“There is absolutely a lot of confidence. There are a lot of games that we can go and attack and try to pick up points.

“Saturday was difficult but we have to let that pass, it is done. We were well in the game before the first game.

“We have to move on to Wednesday night which is a big game for us.

“We can’t concentrate too much on what other people are doing, we have to go in there with a game plan and see if that gets us some points.

“We are confident. There is a good group of lads, I have seen that in training already. There is some real quality in there so why not start a good run on Wednesday?”