With the winter break tans fading and all twelve clubs now into the second half of their Premiership fixture lists, it is time for everyone to tighten their focus and zone in on those targets which are within their grasp.
For Aberdeen, a team now used to annual European qualification, the league table arithmetic meant that boiled to essentially one thing: printing their tickets back into the Europa League by securing one of the top three spots.
Clear blue water both ahead of them and behind, Aberdeen and Motherwell are the two contenders swimming in the North Sea, desperate to reach the continent.
With that in mind, though many matches still lie ahead, this was a key marking buoy, and this evidence leads to only one conclusion: Motherwell are much the stronger.
From day one this season, the Steelmen have known exactly who they are, and have trusted in it to deliver an impressive and consistent set of results.
Their eye-catching League Cup campaign marked them out as a team on the rise and they have backed their strengths to take them where they may.
Aberdeen, by contrast, have never truly hit their stride. Regularly changing the side in both person and nature – varying between defensive and attacking, narrow and wide, with a revolving array of support acts flitting in and out around Sam Cosgrove – the Dons have not drawn themselves any identity this season, other than that of a team desperately trying to hold down the tiles on their roof while the winds rise around them.
So indistinct and uninspired has much of Aberdeen’s work been that it can be a job remembering that they remain eight points clear of fifth spot, or evaluating how they got there.
But with Motherwell now having slipped out of arm’s reach it can no longer be a case of standing pat and protecting Aberdeen’s position: something in this team’s makeup needs to change.