‘Well boss Mark McGhee admits that he is over last weekend’s cup loss and is just focussing on moving up the league table.
The Steelmen face Rangers for the second time in the space of a week as Premiership football gets back underway in 2017.
And speaking to the press this morning at Motorpoint in Glasgow, McGhee revealed his hopes for another good performance on Saturday.
He said: “We were back in yesterday and we’re over it. It was a huge disappointment but we’ve got another important game on Saturday, another opportunity, so we’ll start again.
“I’m experienced enough to get over it because it’s not the end of the world and I know there’s other games, but you just have to be honest in these situations and at that time that was how I felt.”
[pullquote]We were back in yesterday and we’re over it. It was a huge disappointment but we’ve got another important game on Saturday, another opportunity, so we’ll start again.[/pullquote]
He added: “It was an opportunity missed in all sorts of ways because I was very ambitious about the cup this year – I had high expectations and I felt if we could get past that one and maybe get a little bit of luck in the draw then who knows what could have happened.”
With competitive football firmly back in business after a three-week winter break, McGhee expressed his feelings about the stop-start flow this season.
He said: “I’ve said this before but I don’t feel our season has started. It’s stalled and stalled with international breaks, injuries and all sorts and I just don’t feel like there’s been a flow yet.
“On Saturday I saw it as an opportunity to really kick on, I saw it as a starting point for the proper performance of our season.
“All of these things went through my head at the time, I was disappointed, but I’m over it.”
It was Rangers of course who inflicted the cup heartbreak on McGhee and his side, but the manager is under no illusions that playing Rangers so soon after will play any part on this weeks game – it is a fresh fixture and bears no relevance.
The boss said: “The fact it’s Rangers on Saturday isn’t all that important. We just move on, it’s about the three points and we’ve just got to get up the table.
[pullquote]They’ll have seen us up close on Saturday and learnt some things about us so there’s that as well, but we just have to see what we can learn from Saturday and perhaps even improve our performance.[/pullquote]
“You can say all you like about revenge but it won’t be revenge – if we win on Saturday it won’t be revenge for last Saturday because that’s done – it’ll be three points that will contribute to our safety and our push for a top six spot.
“The fact it’s the same opposition is coincidental but they’ll have one or two back so their team might be slightly different.”
He added: “They’ll have seen us up close on Saturday and learnt some things about us so there’s that as well, but we just have to see what we can learn from Saturday and perhaps even improve our performance.”
Looking ahead to Saturday following last weekend, McGhee said: “I can look at all the positives from last weekend but just as importantly I’m looking at the first half from Saturday and thinking about what didn’t work well because I was disappointed with our first half performance.
“On Saturday the best team won, there’s no doubt about that, but the best team doesn’t always win and we set ourselves up for a certain type of performance which we didn’t fully execute in the first half but we did in the second half, to give ourselves a chance to beat opposition who are proving week-in, week-out that they’re better than us.”
He added: “So you can beat teams that are better than you and it’s those things that I thought about before the game, that we didn’t do in the first half, that I’ve got to reinforce this week to make sure we do in the first half this week.”