Several of his players will need to be patched up so they can play but Dundee United boss Ray McKinnon is adamant his team will be ready for battle come kick off in the Premiership promotion play-off final on Thursday.
Stewart Murdoch and Lewis Toshney have already been ruled out by injuries and key men Willo Flood, Thomas Mikkelsen and Simon Murray all finished Friday’s dramatic semi-final win at Falkirk carrying knocks.
That trio are expected to be OK for the first leg against Hamilton Accies and although it’s been a gruelling schedule, with United on a high after going 10 games unbeaten, Ray does not believe fatigue will be a problem.
“We do have a lot of injuries. The full-backs are out, Willo, Thomas and even Simon are all feeling things, but the one thing the boys aren’t is tired,” he said.
“They are fit boys and by Thursday we’ll have had six days to recover from Friday and prepare for this game.
“That’s a day more than Hamilton will have had.
“They needed to play their strongest team on Saturday to make sure they won and avoided automatic relegation.
“And we are a form team. That’s 10 games unbeaten and in my opinion we could have won every one of them.
“I see a real desire to win and it was there on Friday. To come from behind to win a big game like that at a difficult place like Falkirk was great and the boys did really well.”
One thing Ray isn’t doing is getting carried away.
United may now be just two games away from a Premiership return but the gaffer knows they’ll be the biggest matches of the season.
“We are underdogs now. As the team from the Premiership Hamilton will know the financial implication of dropping down and they’ll want to avoid that.
“But we have given ourselves a chance of promotion with two games to go and that was the aim way back at the start of the season.”
Tickets for Thursday night went on sale to season ticket holders on Saturday morning and are now on general sale. They have been selling well and it’s also likely the away allocation of tickets for Sunday’s second leg at New Douglas Park will sell out. They should go on sale in the next couple of days or so.
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