Caley Thistle skipper Carl Tremarco says tonight’s Championship trip to Dundee United is just as vital as their Scottish Cup quarter final tie against the Tangerines on Sunday.
Inverness make their first of two trips to Tannadice in six days when they face Robbie Neilson’s men this evening, with the Highlanders now five points clear in fourth place in the table.
Although Tremarco is excited by the prospect of a trip to Hampden Park in the cup, the defender – who netted the winner in Saturday’s 1-0 win against Morton – says the task of securing a return to the Premiership is equally pressing.
Tremarco said: “We are on a decent enough cup run, but we are going to think about that after this.
“The league is the bread and butter which is an old cliche, but it’s the truth.
“Even Saturday was a bigger game than Ross County in midweek. If we had lost that, it would have been three league games lost on the spin.
“That was a good win on Saturday, and this is just as big – 100%.
“At this time of the season especially, if you are playing more games than normal you are obviously doing something right.
“It’s nice to have cup runs, and getting to Hampden would be brilliant, but where this club needs to be is in the Premiership.”
With 12 points separating Caley Jags from leaders Ross County, Tremarco accepts the play-offs are Inverness’ best hope of securing promotion, with the Englishman determined not to slip below fourth place.
He added: “I think if we are being honest, our main aim at the minute is to finish in the play-offs.
“That said, if we can go on a run like we did last season when we won nine of our last 12 games, you never know.
“At the moment we are looking at keeping fourth. We want to finish in the play-offs and if we don’t, anything else will be a failure.”
United’s title hopes suffered a blow when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Falkirk at the weekend, however Tremarco is not looking beyond his own side’s performance, with the 33-year-old adding: “We seem to do well against Dundee United, maybe because they are a team that like to play and not sit in.
“I think you’ve seen our best performances have come against teams that like to open up and play as much as they can.
“It’s another good test for us, and hopefully we can get the win.
“It’s about what we do – I couldn’t care less what other teams do.
“I heard a few people saying results went our way this weekend, but we need to just keep winning games.
“We need to keep worrying about ourselves and let other people talk about other teams.”