AFTER four pre-season fixtures the real stuff starts on Saturday for Cowdenbeath when Premiership Inverness Caley Thistle come to Central Park to open the new Betfred League Cup programme.

Cowden will face the Highlanders and Championship side Dunfermline Athletic at home, then they will take on Dundee United, also a second tier club, and League 2 side Arbroath on the road in this new look competition.

Cowdenbeath have not played Inverness for almost two decades and in that time they have become an established top division side and Scottish Cup winners.

But Cowden’s new boss Liam Fox, himself a former Caley player, feels his side have nothing to fear in this fixture.

He said this week: “This is a very interesting new look competition and it really gives you a chance to measure yourself against very good opposition.

“It will be very tough for ourselves and Arbroath but we have players who can pose any team problems and our tight park will also be something that the Thistle team will not have met before.”

Caley are now under Richie Foran, the former wide midfielder who took over when John Hughes left the club at the end of last season.

Added Fox: “I know Richie well and he will want to get off to a good start but it is up to us to make life as difficult as we can for them.

“Against Motherwell last week we gave them a good game and our aim has to be to hit that sort of form again.

“The players have produced some really good performances in the pre-season programme, now we have to show that we can do it when it counts.”

The manager was disappointed to lose to a late Greig Spence goal against League 1 side Alloa Athletic on Saturday when they were punished for a couple of errors.

He added: “We were in control of the game in the first period but made too bad errors which cost us goals and that is something we will be working on before the Inverness game.

“We lost a simple goal at a set piece and with the height we have in the side that should happen while the winner came from a simple slip which should not have happened.

“We certainly cannot afford to repeat these sort of errors against a team like Caley or we will be punished.”

Fox confirmed he had signed central defender Gerry McLaughlan before the Alloa game and he will be beside Craig Sives on Saturday.

“In the short term Gerry will probably be our last signing but I feel we have the sort of squad now available which can make its mark on League 2," he added.