Tommy Wright has conceded the league title to Celtic but insists St Johnstone can still find a path to glory in the cups.
The McDiarmid Park men are already into the semi-finals of the League Cup, where they will play Aberdeen at Tynecastle on February 1.
They begin their Scottish Cup campaign with a home fourth round tie against Livingston. Wright believes the championship has already been decided and it is heading the Hoops’ way.
However, Saints are still fighting on two fronts in the cups and their manager is backing them to be successful.
“This will be my first Scottish Cup game as manager of St Johnstone and I am looking forward to it,” said Wright.
“It is an opportunity to get silverware, I believe, because the league is done and dusted. It gives clubs like ourselves a good opportunity to progress and try and get a bit of glory.
“The Scottish Cup is obviously the premier cup competition and it’s the start of an opportunity. Everybody wants to be in the next round and I do feel with the players we have at the club we can beat anybody on any day.
“We have enough quality in the squad to be a good cup side.”
Maybe so, but Wright stressed his view that the players will need to play to a high standard, as they have done several times at home this season, in order to beat Livi.
“People will point out the fact that it’s a Championship side and that will make us strong favourites,” he said.
“But we do know that upsets can happen. I watched them against Dumbarton and they were very good in the first half.
“They probably should have been two or three up before Dumbarton equalised. They then had a great result at the weekend and we know from our own experience that going to Morton isn’t easy.
“To score five there shows they have people in their team you have to be wary of. They do have good quality and we have to make sure we are right.
“We have to be spot-on from the first whistle.”
Wright added: “Our home record you will take the Hibs game and the Minsk match out of it has been pretty good. We have scored a lot of goals at home but we have had to play well to do that.
“It didn’t come easy and we have to do that again.”