ALAN Lithgow has revealed he wants to emulate Morton assistant Andy Millen by playing into his 40s as he aims to get his career back on track at Cappielow after 15 months on the sidelines.

The 33-year-old former Livingston captain checked into Cappielow on Friday and penned a two-year deal - with the option of a third - and wants to put his injury frustration behind him after being ruled out with a troublesome hip problem.

Lithgow hopes to make up for lost time by making his mark in Gus MacPherson's side and says he's inspired by Ton number two Millen who played until the age of 45.

He told the Tele: “I’m 33 years of age and I’ll be 37 when the deal ends, which is fantastic, but I know for a fact that I can last even longer than that.

“A good example of that is Andy Millen himself, he played well into his 40s at this level and hopefully I can emulate something like that because from a selfish point of view, despite me being out for 15 months, it’s actually given me the time I needed to recover properly and off the back of that, hopefully it can extend my playing days.

“I’m desperate to be back out there, I don’t know how many pre-seasons that I’ve done but I generally enjoy doing them because they’re a part of football.

"I can safely say that this will be the most I’ve ever looked forward to getting back out there and running with the group.

“I initially got that injury in the August of 2019, so I ended up coming back from a few injuries before needing my appendix taken out, so it’s all been very stop-start since then with my hip as well.

“It’s been nearly two seasons now and I'm just glad to put it all behind me now and kick on here at Morton.

“It was great to get back at Livingston and be in training but to be here at Morton and to have signed is brilliant.

"I’m really happy to be here and kick on now, getting back to what I do best.

“I spoke to Gus and Andy at the beginning of the week and I know that I’m going to get on with the two of them really well, so I’m really looking forward to getting going.”

Lithgow hopes that penning an extended deal could be the start of something special.

The defender knows all about what it takes to be a success in the Championship having won promotion to the top flight with Livi in 2018.

He added: “This is a league that I know well and a lot of hard work was put in at Livi to get promotion.

“If I could emulate that sort of success here that would be amazing, but I’m one of the old cliché kind of guys who says take things a game at a time.

“That’s what we did at Livi and you just have to look at where it led us to.

“It’ll be competitive in the league this year with the teams that have come down as well as coming up, there’s no clear favourite and everyone will take points off of one another.

“We’ll just need to do the same here and see what happens.”