St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright maintains his squad are well capable of continuing to challenge on multiple fronts as the season enters its final few months.
After Saturday’s 1-0 win over Saints at Pittodrie, Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes said he felt some of his players were “running on empty” after a hectic period of games for the Dons.
However, his counterpart at Perth feels he has the tools at his disposal to freshen things up when needed as they seek to secure a top six Premiership finish and a prolonged stay in the Scottish Cup.
“I see Derek said his team looked tired on Saturday but they still defended very well and they’ve had a lot of clean sheets this season, as have we,” he explained.
“We’re into 16 or 17 clean sheets in all competitions this season, maybe more actually, but we keep a close check on what the players are doing.
“We’ve managed them in terms of some of the older ones get extra days off and we look at their workload. We try to manage it and I haven’t seen anything that would give me any concerns on that front.
“The proof would be in the energy levels we showed in the Tuesday night game against Motherwell and in the second half against Aberdeen on Saturday.
“Being honest, I thought we started the game slowly on Saturday and maybe Tuesday night’s game had that effect, but once the first 15 or 20 minutes were over I thought we were quite good.”
The attention now turns to Saints’ all-important Scottish Cup quarter-final against Raith on Saturday and Wright is well aware of the threat the Championship side can pose.
Indeed, the Saints boss, who has no fresh injury problems ahead of the match, said Raith’s fifth round win over Hibs made a few people sit up and take notice.
He continued: “We’re looking forward to it and I think it’s going to be a great cup tie with a decent atmosphere. And it’s a great opportunity for both clubs to get to a semi-final.
“I look at it and how we’ve approached games against teams from the lower leagues already this season, and we’ve approached them always in the right manner.
“That’s what we’ll do this week. We go there with confidence and let’s be honest, Raith will fancy their chances.
“They are at home and, although they’ve conceded a few goals over the last few weeks, they’ve got some firepower and have scored something like 11 in the last five games or something.
“So they’ve no problem finding the back of the net. They scored three away from home against Hibs and that was probably the best result of the last round.
“I know Aberdeen beating Celtic in the last round was a big result, but Raith going to Hibs I think was a great result. They’ll be cock-a-hoop and will fancy their chances on their own patch, which is what cup football is all about.”