Stevie Aitken has hailed his Dumbarton squad as the strongest it has been since his arrival at the club, and admitted it will be tested to its' limits in the coming weeks.

Aitken added Rangers youngster Tom Walsh and Sheffield United winger Kler Heh on loan deals in January, as well as signing Christian Nade from Hamilton.

He says that they now have the strength in depth to compete with their full-time opponents in the championship.

“We’re delighted with the new guys, they’ve been great and it’s helped that the guys who were already there have made them feel really welcome,” he said.

“The spirit in the dressing room is very good at the moment and we’ll try to keep that going.

“Even though we’ve lost a couple of players I feel the squad is stronger now than it was at the start of January.

“Tom has given us some great quality in the wide areas since Willie Gibson moved on and we needed that.

“Christian was just lacking a bit of match-fitness, but we got a good hour out of him against Dundee and he’s trained well again this week.

“Getting Darren Barr and Stevie Saunders to re-sign and bringing in young Kler were all major boosts, and we’ll need that strong squad as the season goes on.”

Aitken knows that he will need all of his top players to perform well if they are to take anything from Saturday’s visit to Cappielow to take on Morton.

“There’s no doubt it will be tight, they’ve been going really well this season under Jim Duffy,” he said.

“We’re in a good place at the moment though and we’ll be going into this game with a spring in our step.

“We know that Morton have a lot of players that can hurt you, so we’ll have to be at our very best if we are to take anything from the game.

“No matter what happens on Saturday there’s still a long way to go and a lot of points to play for, but certainly in terms of our position just in behind Morton then it would be good to keep that gap nice and tight.

“They’ve been having a great season, and if we can get something on Saturday then it would be great for us.”