Aberdeen blew away the cobwebs on Friday with a comfortable victory against Clyde in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup.
A 2-0 win against Clyde at New Douglas Park in Hamilton on Friday allowed the Dons to shake off the rustiness ahead of a pivotal few weeks of league action.
Now the focus reverts firmly back towards the Scottish Premiership where Barry Robson and his players have plenty to do.
That the Dons are closer to their opponents on Wednesday, St Johnstone, than they are to the European places tells it story.
While the Europa Conference League campaign of 2023 was a fun adventure, not to mention a financially lucrative one for the club, it has come at a cost domestically.
Whether it was the schedule taking its toll or the magnitude of those matches in Europe, there is little doubt the Dons have found themselves firmly off the pace.
Robson’s side trail third-placed Hearts by 14 points. They are nine behind former manager Derek McInnes’ Kilmarnock side who are fourth.
But it remains difficult to assess properly Aberdeen’s league campaign so far due to the fact they have played fewer games than every other club bar Dundee.
A season of ifs, buts and maybes
Should the Dons win their three games in hand on the Jambos the gap will be down to five points.
Take maximum points from the four games they have to play to catch-up with Killie and they will find themselves three points clear of the Ayrshire outfit.
It sounds easy when you say it out loud but the league campaign has been anything but comfortable for the Dons so far, no matter what the reasons for it may be.
They’ve struggled to juggle all the commitments but now Europe is done and dusted for this season there really should not be any more excuses.
The first week back after the winter break is a pivotal one for Aberdeen with trips to McDiarmid Park on Wednesday followed by a huge weekend encounter against Hearts at Tynecastle.
Win both of those games and suddenly everything will look a whole lot rosier in the Pittodrie garden.
But the Perth Saints, who held the Dons to a goalless draw at Pittodrie when the sides last met, have taken 11 points from Levein’s first nine games in charge to move up to 10th place.
They will pull level with Aberdeen if they can take all three points on Wednesday.
Jambos trip looms large
Following the Perth trip is a tougher challenge in the capital.
You have to go back to May 2017 for the last time the Dons beat Hearts on their own turf.
With eight wins and three draws from the league fixtures at Tynecastle which have followed, a victory for Aberdeen would be a timely bucking of that particular trend.
But that is the sort of challenge which the Dons must overcome if they harbour serious ambitions of catching Steven Naismith’s pacesetters in the race to be best of the rest in the Premiership.
The gap is big enough as it is and Aberdeen can ill-afford for it to grow any wider.
With back-to-back games in the first week of February against Celtic and Rangers looming the need for the Dons to strike this week has seldom been more crucial.
The Dons dug deep to turn their season around 12 months ago when Robson was interim manager with the recovery resulting in the caretaker landing the job permanently.
The team really could do with repeating the feat in 2024.
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