Dundee United forward Louis Appere has backed Lawrence Shankland to hit more than 50 goals this season.
Shankland, with Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad this week, hit his 20th of the season in Friday night’s Tayside derby as United extended their lead at the top of the Championship.
And Appere fully expects the 24-year-old to keep up his form in front of goal after hitting the ground running at Tannadice this summer.
“Can he get fifty?,” said Appere.
“I don’t see why not because of the rate he’s scoring at. f he stays in the form he’s in then who knows what he’s capable of. He is a really good goalscorer but it’s unfair to just think of him like that, he’s got really good hold up play as well.
“He brings people into the game and is intelligent, but when you score as many as he does it’s no wonder people just focus on the goals!”
And Appere has backed the striker to find the net for Scotland, despite the differentiation in levels between the Championship and international football.
Clarke side face Cyprus and Kazakhstan this week and with no prolific striker in the squad to automatically claim a starting jersey, it could be an opportunity for Shankland.
“Lawrence showed what he can do for Scotland the last time he was called up and I think he will do the same this week,” said the 20-year-old. “He’s deserved his call up, to score twenty goals by this stage of the season is crazy.
“If he plays for Scotland this week he will do well, he’ll score goals against anyone. If you get the ball into the box and create chances for him he’ll put them away no matter what level it’s at.
“Nothing fazes him, he adapts very well to wherever he’s playing.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here