Ross County co-manager Stuart Kettlewell does not expect any favours from today’s opponents St Johnstone in the Staggies’ bid for Premiership survival.
County need to defeat Saints, and hope Dundee take at least a point against second-bottom Partick Thistle, in order to secure a place in the relegation play-offs.
Although Tommy Wright’s side are eighth in the table and firmly clear of relegation danger, Kettlewell does not expect the Perth men to wind the campaign down at McDiarmid Park.
He said: “I think we’ve seen from the clubs now safe – you look at Motherwell and St Johnstone, who have hit a nice wee patch of form. Obviously there have been a few changes in their line-up and there could be a few guys there looking to earn contracts or thinking about their next move.
“There’s often a lot said about whether such and such team will put the tools away, but we don’t expect that from anybody.
“We wouldn’t accept it from our players or team if we were sitting in that comfortable position and I think the other teams are the same.
“Obviously we need a favour from Dundee and I fully expect Dundee to approach the Partick Thistle game the way they did against us on Tuesday.
“You could see they were well set-up. They have good players and they came to try to win the game. I really don’t expect any different from them on Saturday.
“We can’t focus too much on it, but I do think that professionalism comes into play.”
Although County hope to get off to a good start against Saints, Kettlewell says his substitutes will have a big role to play.
French striker David Ngog made a strong impact from the bench against Dundee on Tuesday, missing a fine chance to equalise, and Kettlewell added: “Games transpire in different ways. I don’t think you can ever sit there and say that’s the three subs we’ll use.
“You’re always considering how the game is developing, what areas we can exploit and who might give us that little bit of edge. It has always been a squad game and that’s something we’ve said since we started here.
“That might come from players who’ve not had much of a sniff recently, depending on how we see the game going.
“We’re not going to give too much away, but we’re going to face a different formation I’d imagine from what we faced against Dundee on Tuesday.
“We have to think where we can deploy our strengths and where theirs may lie – and how it might affect us.”
