Eamonn Brophy warns Ross County not to put all focus on St Johnstone showdown

Eamonn Brophy has warned that Ross County cannot allow themselves to view next Wednesday’s showdown with relegation rivals St Johnstone as any more important than their two other remaining cinch Premiership fixtures.

The Staggies are two points ahead of 11th-placed Saints in what has developed into a two-way battle to avoid requiring an end-of-season play-off against a Championship promotion hopeful in order to secure their top-flight survival.

The two sides meet in Perth on Wednesday but County forward Brophy is adamant his team cannot become distracted by thoughts of that potentially pivotal match ahead of Saturday’s visit of Motherwell.

“People are saying it’s a six-pointer and it is a massive game, but we just want to take one game at a time, try and get three points against Motherwell and then go into that game against St Johnstone trying to get three points,” he said.

“That game is going to be the decider in a lot of people’s eyes but at the end of the day it’s only three points and we’ve got nine points to play for. Hopefully we can take as many points as we can from all the games.”

County are buoyed by the fact two of their remaining three fixtures are at home, where they have won four and drawn two of their six matches since Don Cowie took over from Derek Adams.

As they prepare to host a Motherwell side who thrashed them 5-0 in Adams’ last game in charge in February, Brophy believes his team can also draw a psychological edge for this weekend’s clash from the fact they have so much at stake in comparison to the Steelmen.

“Obviously Motherwell will go out and try to win the game but our mindset has got to be that we don’t want to be involved in the play-offs,” said Brophy.

“They are safe and they can maybe finish seventh but we want to stay in the league so our hunger to win the game has got to be more than theirs.

“Obviously we’ve played against them a few times this season and the last game against them wasn’t great but we’ll try and put that right. We’ve got a lot more to play for than they have and hopefully we can show that on Saturday.”