St Johnstone have already passed up two opportunities to seal their top six place, but manager Tommy Wright is confident it will be third time lucky in the Tayside derby.
If Hamilton don’t beat Dundee United, Saints could afford to lose against Dundee tomorrow and still finish on the right side of the Premiership split line.
But Wright wants to make sure his team do it in style – and boost their Euroap League hopes in the process – by defeating their local rivals for the first time this season.
The Northern Irishman, who reported that injured midfielder Murray Davidson managed to complete a light training session yesterday, said: “We’d like to have got it boxed off against Hamilton, we’d like to have got it boxed off on Tuesday and maybe even a win at Partick would have boxed it off.
“But we haven’t, and that’s where we are.
“This time last year we were sitting there relaxed with 41 points. This year we’ve got 45 and don’t know if we’re in the top six.
“Depending on how results go, we might not even know after Saturday.
“It’s certainly exciting and makes the Dundee game even more interesting.
“We’re two points behind Dundee United, Dundee are one behind us and Hamilton are two behind us. You could put a blanket over us all.
“That’s what the split can create.”
He added: “We’re having a tremendous season and are still in control of our own destiny.
“If we win this game it will be a really good achievement.
“Saturday could be a great day for the club. It will probably be the first time both sets of fans have wanted Dundee United to win!
“There’s a lot of permutations but we have to concentrate on our own performance.
“Three points could maybe even help us get into Europe. That’s been forgotten about with all the talk of the top six.
“We’ve not beaten them yet but we know what we’ve got to do to put that right.”
Wright didn’t need to watch a re-run of the late defeat in Dingwall to discover where improvement is needed.
“We’re looking to do better than we did on Tuesday night in terms of what we do with the ball,” he pointed out.
“And I think we will be better.
“We defended very well but we know where we have to improve. There were too many mistakes in possession.”
Wright was keen to stress that a lack of creativity wasn’t down to the return of James McFadden to the starting line-up.
“We didn’t get James on the ball enough,” he explained. “I felt sorry for him, taking him off.
“He was in the hole behind Macca (Steven MacLean) and when we got him on the ball he caused them a few problems, but we just couldn’t do it often enough.
“It was a frustrating night for him and a frustrating night for me.“
Wright was at Dens Park to watch Dundee’s derby win.
“It was the first Dundee derby I’d been to and it was rip-roaring from the start, with tackles flying in,” he said.
“Dundee had a lot of confidence going into the game. The difference between them was Dundee took their chances and United didn’t.”
The results of Davidson’s x-ray still haven’t been received but fears of a long-term lay-off appear to have faded as the former Livingston man was able to take part in light training.
He could even have an outside chance of featuring tomorrow.
Wright has no other injury concerns.