Stewart Murdoch is fighting to be fit for Dundee United’s tricky-looking trip to Falkirk.
The central midfielder’s experience and workrate would come in handy against the Bairns in the Championship’s Saturday evening kick-off.
Indeed, his partnership in the centre of the park with Willo Flood has been a feature of the tangerines’ play this season.
However, the 26-year-old has missed United’s last two matches against Peterhead and Dunfermline because of a calf injury and it is still bothering him.
Manager Ray McKinnon has vowed to hand Murdoch every opportunity of facing his former team but it will be touch and go.
McKinnon said: “We will give Stewart right up until Saturday to prove his fitness and, fingers crossed, he makes it.
“He hasn’t trained today but we will wait and see because there is still a bit of time between now and the game.
“It is a calf problem where it attaches to the Achilles but he won’t need a scan.”
Getting Murdoch back would help ease the pain of being without the suspended Paul Dixon, who was sent off for two bookings in the 3-1 win over the Pars last Saturday.
McKinnon confirmed: “We’ve had it confirmed to us that Dicker is suspended for Saturday.
“It must be new rules.
“I thought two yellow-cards and the suspension would then kick in a fortnight later.
“But two yellows now is a straight one-game ban.
“The good thing is we have Jamie Robson and he comes into our thoughts.
“Jamie has already done great when Dicker has been out injured so we have no problems over bringing him in.”
McKinnon, who has had his players training on an artificial surface to prepare for the visit to the Falkirk Stadium, revealed that the Dunfermline result has given his squad a significant boost.
He said: “There has been a great atmosphere in training and I think the win at Dunfermline brought everyone together.
“It was backs against the wall with the 10 men.
“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, with the sending-off and the penalties we conceded on the day.
“But I thought it was good to win in that fashion.
“I think a lot of criticism levelled at the team last season was that they would have crumbled in a situation like that.
“But we have brought in a lot of new players and it was great to see them roll their sleeves up and really dig in.
“Hopefully we can go on a run, having started away to Dunfermline, and we hope our big players are starting to come to the fore for us.
“We want to be in good shape going into Saturday’s game.
“Falkirk finished second last season and have effectively still got the same team.
“They’re a strong side and you just need to look at what they did to Rangers in some games last season.
“It’s a hard place to go to.
“We just need to go there and try to get a victory.”
