Brill enjoying the Highland life
Inverness goalkeeper Dean Brill feels the "secluded" nature of the Highlands has helped the Scottish Premiership leaders focus on their football.
Like the vast majority of his team-mates, Brill moved from England to Inverness and believes their remote new surroundings have helped foster a strong team spirit.
The togetherness is evident on the park with early pace-setters Inverness travelling to Aberdeen on Saturday with 16 points from six games.
Brill, who is keen to extend his loan deal from Luton beyond January, said: "We are secluded up here, we are quite far away from friends and family. So it's a much slower lifestyle for people like myself who have moved away from home. My wife travels up every other week or so.
"So I can just concentrate on my football and I think a lot of the boys are like that.
"Because we mingle with each other as well, I think that probably helps us concentrate on football. We are constantly around each other and learning about each other."
Brill did not know what to expect when he joined the club in the summer but has been pleasantly surprised by their flying start to the season.
"Obviously I knew the club did well last year and narrowly missed out on a European place," the 27-year-old said.
"I didn't know much about what the football was going to be like. There is not much exposure down south, so I came up with an open mind.
"I remember saying to friends and family I was looking forward to seeing what the level was like and how it would pan out and fortunately it has been fantastic."
Inverness manager Terry Butcher revealed earlier this week that he was in talks with Luton about extending the loan spell.
Brill, who has started every game this season, said: "That's up to the two clubs to discuss, I am just concentrating on the next game.
"I am enjoying my football, I enjoy the place to live. I would love to extend my time here but that's for the two clubs to sort out."
Butcher, who boasts a full-strength squad, is again set to send out an unchanged team at Aberdeen having named the same starting XI in each of his side's six games.
Aberdeen could have striker Niall McGinn back in their squad after an ankle injury while Barry Robson is also in contention having recovered from minor knee surgery, but Russell Anderson (broken hand), Chris Clark (knee) and Willo Flood (hamstring) all remain sidelined.
Aberdeen goalkeeper Jamie Langfield has dismissed criticism of their pre-match routine against Partick Thistle by declaring it an "Aberdeen bosie" rather than a huddle.
The Dons won 3-0 at Firhill but some fans were unimpressed with the team's coming-together before the game, likening it to the huddle made famous by Celtic.
However, Langfield revealed the players and manager Derek McInnes believed it would help the young players in their injury-hit team and gave the ritual its own identity by naming it after a Doric word for hug.
Langfield said: "We had a lot of young players in the team on Saturday and the older boys just thought we would get it right.
"It was just one of these spontaneous thing that's happened.
"It has caused some upset but we do not like to call it the huddle. We like to call it the Aberdeen bosie, as I have seen on Twitter. It's not a huddle, it was a bosie.
"We were a young team on Saturday and it was something the older boys and manager had discussed just to get the young boys up. And it worked.
"It won't happen all the time but sometimes the young boys need that."
Langfield stressed they would face a different proposition in Inverness, who have enjoyed a blistering start to the season.
"We know what to expect from Inverness, they are a well-drilled side with a lot of flair players in their team and they have Billy McKay, who scores a good lot of goals this season as well," he said.
"We have to take care of him. It will be a great game.
"I don't think it will be surpassing Terry Butcher's and Maurice Malpas's expectations (to be top of the league). They saw the team they had last year. Terry has them so well organised.
"They are scoring goals and not conceding and that's a massive thing in this league. They have built on last season and maybe Terry and Maurice have got the bit between their teeth because they just missed out (on Europe) last season and want an even better season for Inverness."
Source: PA
