Exclusive: Falkirk FC boss Paul Sheerin plans to play new Aberdeen loan signing Michael Ruth in his favoured central striker role

The 19-year-old forward – who has joined from Aberdeen until the end of the season – is known to Bairns boss Paul Sheerin who was the Dons’ under-20 manager before taking over at Falkirk in May.

"I know Mikey from working with him over the years at Aberdeen,” Sheerin said.

"He’ll be in the squad. Obviously with him just coming in we will make a decision on that over the next couple of days.

"He will certainly have some involvement in the game at some stage.

"He’s still young, he’s still got a lot to learn. But I’ve worked with him, I know he’s a striker who links play well and gets in the middle of the goal.

"He scored a lot of goals at development level and I know it’s a different proposition scoring goals when you come into the league.

"He had a mixed loan at Arbroath last season playing in a wide area a lot and never really got the opportunity to play regularly through the middle. When he is involved, we’ll try and give him that opportunity to make sure it is through the middle where I think Aberdeen want to develop him.

"When he gets that opportunity it’s up to him just to take it.”

Sheerin then assessed this Saturday’s opponents Alloa, whom Falkirk will face having suffered two consecutive defeats in league and cup.

“Each game in this division brings its different challenges,” Sheerin said.

"Alloa have obviously recently been relegated so they’ll have ambitions of their own to make sure they get back up to the Championship as quick as they can.

"I think the new management are still finding their way a wee bit. From our point of view it’s important we get back to winning ways after two defeats.

"It’s funny how football throws up habits so it’s a habit we’d like to get out of quickly and hopefully that starts on Saturday.”

After Sheerin rang the changes for last Saturday’s 3-1 Challenge Cup defeat at Kilmarnock, it is likely that some of the youngsters who started that game will be replaced by more seasoned pros this time.

He said: “Potentially there will be some changes, maybe not as many as eight but there will be changes within the group, I’m not going to sit here and deny that.

"It was good to give some of the younger boys a run out at Killie. It’s a competition where we used the first round to get boys minutes and we felt that they had earned that after their performance against East Kilbride.

"So it was important we gave them that opportunity. I’ll be honest, I thought Kilmarnock might have made a few more changes than they did and been a wee bit younger so that was a bigger challenge than we probably expected but one the boys enjoyed.

"Looking back now I thought first half the boys were very good after the start of the game and we actually stood up to things quite well.

"We lost our way a wee bit in the second half but with a young group that’s not played a lot of football, fitness told in that as well and that showed towards the end of the game.

"But for the main there were enough positives to take from it that pleased me.”