Saints v Motherwell preview

The League Cup is given the same contempt by many SPL clubs that we used to give the League Challenge Cup. It's nice to go on a run, but no big deal if you get knocked out (unless it's to a lower league side, which it usually is with us). However, when you get to the latter stages it becomes a bit more important. We're now at the quarter finals of the League Cup, where we haven't been in nine years, and victory tomorrow night gives us our second trip to Hampden of 2009 - although it'll be on a cold, winter night rather than a sunny, spring afternoon.

There's not really much that can be said that wasn't said in the preview for Saturday's game, so I'll keep things brief. Craig Dargo, Mo Camara, Steven Robb and Chris Smith are all still out and will now be joined by Tom Brighton, who went off in Saturday's entertaining draw. Michael Higdon will almost certainly replace him, with young guns Sean Burns and Conor Ramsay providing the attacking options on the bench. Aside from that it'll probably be the same, although a few players did look a bit jaded on Saturday.

We know all about Motherwell's threats, although we won't have Stevie O'Reilly to deal with this time. Ross Forbes and Jim O'Brien can cause problems, while Łukasz Jutkiewicz proved on Saturday he knows how to score goals.

If both teams pick up where they left off on Saturday, this could be a cracker - although don't expect a proper match report as I can't make it.