Dundee boss Mark McGhee says returning captain Charlie Adam will be a major boost for the Dark Blues ahead of today’s Aberdeen clash.
How much time he’ll spend on the pitch, however, is still unknown after picking up a sickness bug this week.
The Dens skipper returned to training last week after a troublesome hamstring injury picked up against Hibs at the start of March.
That, though, was put off again by illness.
“Charlie remains doubtful, he’s not trained all week,” said McGhee.
“We may squeeze him onto the bench.
“He’s desperate to be involved and we want him involved as quickly as possible so if he’s ready, we’ll definitely squeeze him onto the bench.
“No matter how far back you look, any good stuff then Charlie is involved in a lot of it. So we know what he can bring and, of course, we want him involved.
“But he’s had an illness, he’s had an injury and hasn’t trained much so we have to be careful.”
Definitely out are centre-back Lee Ashcroft and striker Cillian Sheridan while goalkeeper Adam Legzdins remains on the sidelines as he recovers from a knee injury and illness.
Danny Mullen is expected to return after missing out against Rangers.
Time
Time is quickly running out for the Dark Blues to pull themselves to some kind of safety with 11th-placed St Johnstone four points ahead with seven games to go.
And McGhee hopes the work done on the training pitch with assistant Simon Rusk over the international break can bear dividends against his old side.
“Apart from any technical work we might have done with them we’ve been able to do longer sessions with the players, particularly earlier in the week,” McGhee added.
“We have got a lot of work done with them and time spent with them.
“We hope that will benefit us on Saturday, it should.
“At this stage of the season, I would normally be cutting sessions back rather than increasing.
“But we’ve been out a bit longer than we normally would be because we feel we need to try to squeeze a bit more out of it.
“It’s a big game for us, another game we need to try to win.”
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