St Johnstone boss Derek McInnes admits the draw for the last eight of the Co-operative Insurance Cup could have been kinder to his club.
But he’s hoping to seize the opportunity that facing Celtic offers to provide further evidence of the progress Saints are making.
Nine games into the season, the Perth outfit are five points better off than they were at the corresponding stage last term.
Now McInnes wants an Old Firm scalp to reinforce the message that his is a club on the up.
“I’m not going to pretend we wouldn’t have preferred to have avoided Celtic,” he confessed.
“It’s a fact that the Old Firm are favourites for every competition here in Scotland. But being at home helps our cause.
“Celtic have a spirit and work ethic about them as well as a talent so they’ll be tough to beat.
“And there’s no doubt Neil Lennon will be looking for a positive reaction from his players to losing the Old Firm game.
“But if we play the way we can then I’m sure we’ll make it difficult for them.
“I’m happy with the form we’re in going into this one.Solid”We’ve had a few average performances this season but only one poor one and picked up 10 points from the last 15. We’re also looking pretty solid at the minute.
“We’re not scoring as many goals as we were this time last year but we’re not losing as many either, which is testament to the workrate of the players.
“I keep hearing opposition managers like Terry Butcher and Billy Reid saying how disappointed they were with their team’s performances against us.
“But you shouldn’t underestimate how hard we are to play against when we’re right, as we have been over recent weeks.
“And hopefully we can stop Celtic’s better players performing and impose ourselves on the game.
“We try to play cup football week in week out, playing at a tempo and looking to ask questions of our opponents.
“We’ll attempt to do that again on Wednesday night.
“We’ve come close against the Old Firm in cups before.
“We’ve made four semis in the last four seasons and lost to the eventual winners each time.Progress”We want to get there again and hopefully demonstrate the progress we’ve made as a club by taking things a stage further and hopefully taking our supporters to a final.”
Saints will be missing Kevin Moon and Graham Gartland along with Jody Morris, who cracked a rib in training last Friday.
Keeper Peter Enckelman will be on the bench again despite still nursing his long-standing thigh problem.
“You always want your experienced players for games like these and Jody is a miss for us,” said McInnes.
“But we managed to get a result on Saturday without him, as we’ve done in the past.
“And I thought Chris Millar was outstanding in Jody’s role at Hamilton.”
McInnes, meanwhile, took the opportunity to point out that TV evidence had completely exonerated Danny Grainger over Flavio Paixao claims that the full-back had assaulted him as the pair stumbled into the Accies dugout.
“Having watched the incident back, their boy will be a bit embarrassed about what he said,” stated the Saints boss.
“It’s clear there was no contact.
“We wouldn’t tolerate any of our players punching or elbowing off the ball.
“As a team we are competitive and won’t be pushed about. But that’s as far as it goes.
“My player was accused of punching and elbowing. That’s definitely 100% not the case.”