Livingston defender Ayo Obileye watches Celtic, Hearts and Rangers mix it up in European competition and admits he sees no reason why the Lions can't be doing the same next season.
The Lions suffered top-six agony last year as an injury-time equaliser from Motherwell in the final pre-split fixture bumped Livi into the lower half of the table. Had they prevented that goal, they would have been in a race for Europe over the final five fixtures.
The year before that a run of one point in the final five games saw them fall out of contention. Although that blow was perhaps softened by the fact that gaining a European licence would have been unlikely.
That it's been a case of near misses in each of the last two seasons, though, has convinced the ex-Queen of the South man that they have what it takes to represent Scotland on the continent for the first time in 20 years.
He said: "I watched the European games this week and I think ‘I want a bit of that’. I think Livingston could perform at that level. It comes back to last season. If we had beaten Motherwell, we would have been in the top-six and we could have been in Europe now.
“I want to get to that level and the club are the same, we want to try to get to that highest level. It would mean a lot to me to get into Europe with Livingston. It’s something I am determined to do and it is a realistic target for us.
"The quality we have here, we have so many great players in the squad that we can achieve it. Europe is a target, but we can’t afford to be too big-headed or get ahead of ourselves. We have to take it one game at a time and see where we are in a few months."
Speaking ahead of today's clash with Ross County, the 28-year-old added: "I feel we have improved from last season.
“It takes time for boys to gel when they come to a new club. Last year, we had a lot of new faces but this year we kept a lot of the boys together so it makes it easier. We have added some quality and I feel like the new boys have settled in quicker than maybe the likes of I did. That’s a good thing.
"I think there is more to come from us and people will see what we are really about.”
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