Passports on standby

Inverness travel to the City of Discovery on Saturday to discover if they can seal that elusive European spot prior to the Scottish Cup final. A win over Dundee would confirm Inverness as third in the country and ensure us of playing in the Europa League next season. There are other permutations of course but that is the favoured one.

A deserved win over Dundee United in midweek has seen Inverness open up a seven point gap over challengers United and Tayside neighbours St Johnstone, who meet on Saturday, with only three games remaining. For Inverness, it's a winner takes all situation.

The heavens opened on Tuesday night ahead of our re-arranged game against the Arabs and the pitch condition aided United to an early goal when Danny Devine's passback stuck in a puddle. Ryan Esson could only push the ball forward to around forty yards under challenge and Robbie Muirhead clipped the ball into the unguarded net thereafter. But Inverness went in front before the break and never looked back although a late United flurry produced some arse clenching moments. Eddie Ofere and Danny Williams with a spectacular volley sealed the points as we took a massive step to creating our own bit of history.

Dundee played Celtic on the Friday night and were scalped, or should that be skelped by the champions. 5-0 was the final score as the Dark Blues were routed. Paul Hartley explained that Dundee were "at their worst" after the 0-2 defeat by St Johnstone. I shudder to think what he thought of the demolition at Parkhead.

Unfortunately, Inverness have never really come to terms with playing at Dens Park and historical evidence reveals that we tend to struggle somewhat to get a result there. In saying that, in recent years we have fared much better, winning three of our last four visits to Dens Park. That included a League Cup win last season.

This season our only win over the Dark Blues came at Dens Park, Ryan Christie scoring a late winner in a 2-1 victory. The other two games in the Highlands ended all square. Dundee scraped into the top-six on the last day of open games but they look like ending the season in sixth place. At the moment they sit fifteen points behind Inverness. We did get the monkey off our back with that win over United, our first league win at the tenth time of asking, but an important one at that. Dundee have lost their last four games, twice to St Johnstone and twice to Celtic. One word of warning however. They have scored only three goals less than us. Our defence though is more adept at keeping other teams out it seems and that is why we are third and they are sixth.

Inverness have the same guys out long term but David Raven can return after suspension to give Yogi a selection choice after Devine and Meekings played well in midweek. Meekings took over Raven's right back slot and looked ever so comfortable there. Devine will also need game time ahead of the cup final when Gary Warren will be suspended.

Paul Hartley may have to use Kyle Letheren in goals with Scott Bain struggling with a knee injury. Naughty boy Paul McGowan and Greg Stewart will return to the squad. They missed the thrashing at Parkhead, they'll be glad of that. Kevin McBride will not be in contention for a place in the squad as he has left the club by mutual consent. He should have used a taxi, meh.

tm4tj prediction:- Well, we don't do anything the easy way and I can't see it being any different tomorrow. Dundee will fancy their chances against us and will be stronger than they were against Celtic with McGowan and Stewart returning. Eddie Ofere is endearing himself to the Inverness fans with his ability to score and Danny Williams is packing quite a punch in that left peg of his. If our passing game holds up then we could clinch the Euro slot tomorrow, if not then it will depend on the result in the Tayside derby, or we might need to rely on plan B, C, or D to see it through. I'm optimistic though after breaking our bad run of results and will be looking for a win.

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