The bookies will look at our home advantage in both games and probably make us marginal favourites each time so failure to take at least one victory would be a huge disappointment. The league clash is up first and with Motherwell currently sitting third we would hugely strengthen our position in the race for Europe with a victory. United are also moving up the table after a bad start to the campaign though and were a little unlucky not to take a point from Celtic last week.
Our squad is largely healthy at present and Saunders making his comeback in a mid-week bounce game, lost to St Mirren, could give the manager pause for thought. If he plays at right back it would seem unthinkable that Hateley would be preferred to Hammell on the left so that would mean shaking up the midfield and possibly attack to accommodate him. Dropping Murphy or Humphrey is out of the question and neither Lasley nor Jennings would expect to be on the bench after recent performances.
Reynolds takes aim
With Blackman finding the net regularly – at least away from Fir Park – Sutton may be the man in danger and could be replaced by Murphy to free up a midfield slot to include Hateley. With Gow also on the bench we certainly have good attacking options and even against a strong United squad we have little reason to be fearful.
The guests will be without Swanson and Kovacevic once more but we have struggled against the power of Daly in the past while Goodwillie will also pose us problems. Conway has torn us apart a couple of times in recent meetings as well so should he receive an early reducer few fans are likely to complain.
If we play well and United don't, we'll win this game but if we don't reach our best and they play well we will surely be defeated. Let us hope for the former and we can take our chances to squeeze out a narrow 2-1 win.
Remember the last time United were at Fir Park?