With SPL safety now officially secured, we can relax and enjoy a game for once. There is still the issue of 10th place to be decided, which would be worth £80,000 more than finishing 11th. A point, or Kilmarnock failing to win, is all we need to secure it, but it would arguably be paper over the cracks that have been appearing once again this season. Big changes are needed at the club this summer, from top to bottom. yes, we have avoided the drop once again, but it should never have been an issue. With the debt cleared and a new stadium and training facilities in the place, we should have really made some progress this season. Look at what St. Johnstone and Hamilton have achieved since promotion - they've done far more than we have in the last four seasons. Yes, we made the League Cup Final, but again that was cup form hiding the problems - just like last year's Scottish Cup run.
Arguably, this could be the end of an era tomorrow afternoon. By the time the new season starts we could have a new board, several new players and even a new manager, depending on who you believe. However, tomorrow's game will probably continue a Saints tradition of old - when a team is struggling, we help them out with a win. Aberdeen have been awful all season, but seem to have stepped things up a notch since the split. Defeat tomorrow would be their third in a row and could well lead to McGhee getting his jotters in the summer.
Potentially, this will be the last game for a large chunk of the Saints squad. Andy Dorman will almost certainly be away and Billy Mehmet could follow him. Chris Innes, who is back from suspension, Steven Robb, Stephen O'Donnell, Alan Johnston and Garry Brady are all out of contract too and could well be shipped out, while fellow free agents Jack Ross and Tom Brighton are injured. Dorman faces a race against time to make this one after missing the Hamilton game through injury along with Steven Thomson. That once again led to the farcical situation of us fielding just five substitutes, which suggests there isn't much chance of us seeing any of the youngsters tomorrow. The best we can expect is another run out for Rory Loy, who got an extra-long play time during the week. It's his final appearance before he goes back to Ibrox after a pointless loan spell, while of more concern is the impending return of Graham Carey to Celtic. Most of us would love to see him playing for Saints next season, but finances could mean it's just not possible.
Depending on the injuries, it wouldn't be a surprise to see us go with the same team that played on Wednesday night. The goalkeeper and defence will be the same, while Billy Mehmet and Michael Higdon will probably be favoured even though they offer little pace. The only changes could come in midfield if Dorman or Thomson are back, but I think a place on the bench is the best that either of that pair can expect. It was nice to see the strange situation of us having four strikers on at the same time during the week and it wouldn't be a surprise if we saw a repeat of that on Saturday.
Aberdeen boss McGhee is much hated by Saints fans from his time at Motherwell and supporters of other SPL clubs don't really like him either. That view now seems to have spread to Aberdeen fans after what can only be described as a disastrous season. The club's worst ever European defeat, no place in the top six and knocked out of the cup at home to a first division side. There have also been problems behind the scenes, while McGhee has continued to be arrogant to the media and believe he is god - all this after saying he'd rather have got the Celtic job in the summer! His stint in charge at Pittodrie is perhaps proof that managers shouldn't return to clubs where they were legends as players.
The current predicament of the team from the Granite City is a mystery as they do have some good players. Steven MacLean's loan spell from Plymouth has been a success as the striker has chipped in with a few goals and he has more than compensated for the departure of Lee Miller in January. Jamie Langfield is usually a reliable keeper, if a little error prone, while Charlie Mulgrew's set-piece delivery can cause teams all sorts of problems. They also have good midfielders in Gary McDonald, Stuart Duff and Mark Kerr. However, the problems at the club were highlighted neatly last Saturday when Richard Foster and Zander Diamond both got themselves stupidly sent off towards the end of the defeat to Hamilton, perhaps in a bid to miss their midweek defeat to Kilmarnock.
In five previous SPL seasons we've never won our final match - tomorrow is a great chance to set that record straight and send us into the summer on a high.