Caley Thistle manager John Robertson insists games in hand mean nothing unless Inverness can capitalise on the points at stake in the coming weeks.
Inverness will play their first match in more than a month when they face Morton at Cappielow tomorrow, following a succession of postponements in recent weeks.
Caley Jags’ home match against Alloa Athletic became the latest match to be called off on Saturday, due to an area of the Caledonian Stadium surface which had not been exposed to sunlight being frozen.
The disrupted schedule has resulted in Inverness playing fewer games than any other team in the league, with six points now separating them from the promotion play-off spots.
Although Inverness have the chance to make up that ground in the coming weeks, Robertson must prove their promotion credentials in the coming weeks.
He said: “If somebody said to me would I like games in hand, or do I want an extra 10 or 12 points, I’d take the points on the board.
“Games in hand are irrelevant, because they’re worth nothing unless you win them.
“If you win your games in hand, you shoot up into the play-off spots and challenge for second place, if you lose them then you’re looking at the relegation play-offs.
“It’s all right people saying we’re OK, because we’ve got games in hand, but we need to get the points.
“Recently, Morton have put a winning run together and gotten themselves up the table very quickly, Queen of the South have gone their last four or five games unbeaten and pushed up the table, while we’ve been sitting kicking our heels.
“We’ve got to get that winning run, win our games in hand if we can and get ourselves up into a position to challenge.”
Robertson says the Highlanders have done all they can to prepare for tomorrow’s game in the absence of recent fixtures, and he added: “We were able to train on Monday as Fort George had thawed.
“The weather reports for Greenock look quite mild, so hopefully the game will go ahead on Wednesday.
“I think we’ve only missed a couple of days. We looked to train on Saturday, but, like the pitch here, Fort George was rock hard.
“We organised some impromptu gym sessions for the lads to come in over Saturday and Sunday to make sure they kept up their work, and we pushed training back on Monday to the afternoon to give the ground time to thaw.”
The Cappielow surface has been badly affected by the recent weather in Inverclyde, with Robertson insisting his players must be prepared to mix up their game against the fifth-placed Ton.
Robertson added: “We have to be ready for it.
“We’re fortunate in a way that Fort George is in great condition.
“Dale Stephen, our groundsman, works very hard on it and has gotten it into tremendous nick.
“It bears no resemblance to what surface we might well find on Wednesday – and I believe there’s more rain due in the area.
“It shouldn’t affect the game, but it might affect the surface.
“We watched them against Dunfermline, and it looked a tricky surface to say the least.
“I think they’ve had to train on it, it looks churned up a little bit.
“They didn’t have a game at the weekend, so hopefully the groundsman has managed to get it flattened a little bit, but it’s not going to be silky I wouldn’t imagine.
“It never is in Cappielow to be fair, it tends to be a very intense game, and a rigorous match, so we’ll be expecting no different.
“They try to get the ball forward very quickly and compete for the second balls, so that’s something we’re going to have to be aware of and counter in our own way.”
