The last meeting of the season with Dundee United is coming up this Saturday. Will anyone end up as the April Fool?
The Opposition
Ray McKinnons side sit 4th in the Championship chasing one of the promotion play-off places. While they might still achieve their goal of promotion back the Premiership at the first attempt, when the sides last met, on league duty, Utd were second and pushing Hibs for the title. A poor run of recent form, combined with great runs from Falkirk and Morton have seen the Dundee side overtaken by both of their play-off rivals. Its all very tight between those three, though, with just 2 points separating Utd in fourth and Morton in second.
Despite their recent poor form, particularly away from home, United celebrated a cup win last weekend as the lifted the IRNBRU Cup trophy, beating St Mirren 2-1 in the final at Fir Park. They followed that up with win over Ayr, at Tannadice, by the same scoreline.
Since our last league meeting in January, McKinnon has added two players to his squad. Alex Nicholls signed on loan from Barnet in the January transfer window, while ex-Manchester City youth Wato Kuate signed a short term deal until the end of the season last week. Five players have left the Arabs too, the most notable being Cammy Smith, who is now on loan at St Mirren, an Tope Obayeyi who joined Oldham.
The Game
This Ladbrokes Championship match kicks off at 3pm on Saturday 1st April at Palmerston. Live updates will be available on the website and on twitter and Facebook. We will also publish pictures through the day on our new Instagram Channel
The Fans
For home fans, the normal ticket procedure applies for the game and tickets will be available for all areas of the ground on match day from the usual ticket offices. Tickets can also be purchased in advance from the Midsteeple and, from Thursday onwards, the Club Shop.
For season ticket holders, this will be match ticket 16.
Full ticket details and pricing, for home and away fans, can be found here
Away fans will be in the Rosefield Salvage Stand. Tickets are on sale on the day at the ground from the usual ticket offices.
Directions on how to get to Palmerston, including parking information, can be found here
Never been to Palmerston before? Read our First Time Fan Guide
Dont forget, their is still 50% off all Macron stock in the club shop which will be open before and after the game.
The Manager
It was a poor game against Raith Rovers last week, the match lacked entertainment and short changed both sets of supporters. For me the only real piece of quality was our goal, Stephen Dobbie's free kick. However, I've said before we want to finish with as many points as possible, so on the plus side it was another point away from home.
This weekend we welcome Dundee United back to Palmerston. They've had a couple of great results in the last week, winning a national trophy and scoring a late winner to beat Ayr in the league so they'll be full of confidence, but I'm sure many will agree that we were unlucky the last time we played them in the Irn Bru semi final just a few weeks ago.
Apart from our first league game at Palmerston, all our games against United have been tight this season and I'm expecting a similar game on Saturday.
The Team
Dale Hilson returns to the squad.
The Officials
Referee : Stephen Finnie
Assistant 1 : Ralph Gordon
Assistant 2 : Matthew MacDermid
This will be Mr Finnies 21st game in charge for us, going back nearly 10 years. Our record is good with 11 wins, 4 draws and 5 defeats. His last game in the middle was the 4-1 victory over Ayr in the second league game of this season. However, the previous 3 games had all ended in defeat.
In those 21 games, Mr Finnie has only shown 2 red cards and only awarded 2 penalties.
The Stats
Neither side come into this game in particularly good form, in fact both sit at the bottom of the form table over the last six game, with Utd picking up just 4 points to our 5.
Both teams sit second bottom in the home/away form tables too. While we have taken 7 points from our last 6 home games, Utd have picked up just 1 point in their last 6 away games, a 1-1 draw with Dunfermline back in January.