The Race for Third

Thoughts of the Scottish Cup final will be on the back burner this weekend as Inverness travel to Perth to take on fast finishers St Johnstone who have clawed their way into the race for third place after overtaking Dundee United last weekend.

The Perth side are once more making a late run for the finishing line and are now within four points of stuttering Inverness, having beaten the Dark Blues in last weeks Tayside derby.

It is now nine games since Inverness last won a league game, the worst stat in the Premiership. That win was against Championship bound St Mirren. We have only won four points out of a possible twenty-four over the last eight games. St Johnstone have taken fourteen points over the same period which has included four wins, the pick of the bunch being that 1-0 win at Parkhead.

It's not the first time we have allowed St Johnstone back into the frame right at the end of the season. They pipped us at the post two years ago as we went down in Dingwall on the last day of the season and the Perth men made a strong run on the blind side, winning at Motherwell to grab the last available Euro slot.

Last week, Inverness played well enough but without the clinical finishing, it was always going to be a difficult task to take all three points from a miserly resolute Aberdeen. In the end we paid for some poor attempts at scoring, especially Watkins and Ross and suffered at set pieces. Lady luck deserted us and a Raven own goal got Aberdeen back in the game after a supine Edward Ofere scooped home the opener. McGinn knocked in the second following a corner but we lacked the cutting edge to get back on level terms. Not for the want of trying, and we can't fault the guys, especially after the previous weeks exertions.

St Johnstone leap frogged Dundee United after beating their neighbours Dundee 2-0 at Dens Park. Second half goals from Swanson and Wotherspoon were enough to edge them past ten man Dundee, their second win over them in a fortnight.

John Hughes has been nominated for Manager of the Year after guiding Inverness to their first ever Scottish Cup final and heading for our highest league finish, all that after persevering with the possession play that got us off to a flier at the start of the season. Tough competition for Yogi though with Championship winners gaffer Robbie Neilson also in the frame, alongside Derek MacInnes and Ronny Deila. All worthy winners in their own right. Good luck with that.

After his cup heroics, David Raven has given Inverness fans more reason to cheer by extending his contract for a further year, that's adding to Greg Tansey who had already signed on for another two years.

Ins and outs for this week

Inverness will be without Richie Foran and Dean Brill for the rest of the season and Ross Draper misses out as he serves the second of his two match suspension

St Johnstone can call upon the services of Steven Anderson and Simon Lappin as both are now free of suspension. Brian Easton could miss out after his injury against Dundee.

tm4tj prediction:- We do, of course, have that minor distraction of the Cup Final to think about, but securing our highest finish in the top flight should be enough motivation to drive us onwards. However, we have been here before and blown it. Difficult to put the Cup game completely out of the mind and that could be enough for St Johnstone to narrow the gap to one point, but I will be looking for at least one point from this game.

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