Dundee United right-back Keith Watson hopes to have European football to look forward to as he recuperates from surgery.
The Tannadice defender has finished the season strongly despite a hernia problem and was their best performer in Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat at Ibrox.
The injury will be fixed when he goes under the knife today and then Watson can lie back and wait to see if the Old Firm can combine to secure a Europa League place for the Tangerines, via their fourth-place finish in the SPL.
United need Rangers to seal the championship on Sunday at Kilmarnock, and then for Celtic to beat Motherwell in the Scottish Cup final a week on Saturday.
“It is a small op but I want to get it done,” said Watson. “I would like to get it over with as soon as possible so I can get back fit and ready for pre-season training which is, of course, that bit earlier than usual this summer (Watson and his team-mates are scheduled to report back on June 17).
“So I will miss the final game against Hearts on Sunday, which is a pity. But the boys will be going all out for the victory without me because we want to finish with as many points as possible.
“If we do beat Hearts then that will be us with 61 points, which is only two points off last season when we did finish third.
“Ending up fourth is still a tremendous achievement considering the selection problems we have had.
“The big thing for us now is that we still have a chance of getting into Europe … I will just have to sit back and see what happens.”
Should United make it to the Europa League nobody at the club is counting their chickens yet then they will enter at the second qualifying round, which would be played on July 14 and 21.
Whatever their Euro fate may be, there is a real sense of achievement at Tannadice in clinching fourth, with last season’s Scottish Cup-winning exploits always going to be hard to follow up.
Also, when you factor in the lengthy absences of first-team men like Craig Conway, Danny Swanson, Mihael Kovacevic, Garry Kenneth, Scott Severin, Darren Dods and Jon Daly, then they do have every right to be satisfied with their year’s work.
“I lost count at one stage of all the people who were out injured for one reason or another,” added Watson. “We didn’t want to use that as an excuse but now the season is almost over I think we can say that it was tough.
“We did our best to overcome those problems, though, and since the turn of the year we have really come on to a game.
“Not getting back to the Scottish Cup final would be the one big disappointment out of the season for me because I would have liked to have gone to Hampden to defend the trophy. It has happened now so we won’t dwell on it and now we can look ahead to next season with optimism.”
Meanwhile, United have had a £5000 suspended fine imposed on them by the SPL after being found guilty of not having their undersoil heating working properly ahead of the postponed match against Hamilton Accies on Boxing Day.