Aberdeen must put themselves back in the driving seat in the race to finish best of the rest before the split.
Jimmy Thelin’s side are one point behind third-placed Hibernian with eight games of the Scottish Premiership campaign remaining.
And former Don Steve Tosh insists the next three games before the split will be pivotal for Jimmy Thelin’s side as they bid to secure a third-place finish this season.
The race for the European places is wide open, with the four contenders – Hibs, the Dons, Dundee United and Hearts – separated by just five points.
The post-split fixtures are shaping up to be tense, hugely competitive encounters and Tosh believes the team who have the advantage at the split will be favourites to finish third.
He said: “I think you want to be going into the split in third position.
“They will be playing against their five big counterparts – playing against fundamentally five of the best teams in the league – so you’re better having the points in the bag going into the last five games.
“That’ll be what Jimmy is pushing for between now and the next three games. He’ll be chasing nine points from the three games before the split.”
Top six will be hard to displace
Motherwell – who visit Pittodrie on Saturday – are the best-placed team in the bottom half of the Premiership table, one point behind sixth-placed Hearts, but Tosh believes the current top six will be the ones competing after the split.
He said: “I think the current group will be the top six after these last three games.
“For a team to miss out, they’d probably need to lose their remaining three games before the split.
“You’re looking at the teams in the bottom half and thinking they’d need to win all three games to get there, and I’m not sure that’s going to happen in a league as tight and competitive as this has been.”
‘Dons are where I expected them to be’
Aberdeen’s own top-six position has yet to be confirmed, a scenario which seemed unfathomable following an outstanding return of 31 points from the opening 11 league games.
The tail-off in results was even more dramatic than the impressive start to the campaign, but overall Aberdeen are where Tosh expected them to be at this stage of the season.
He said: “It was a bit of a false dawn – I think everybody, Jimmy included, would tell you that.
“There was little room for improvement, because really, other than going 33 points from 33 instead of 31 from 33 as they did, how on earth do you do any better?
“What nobody expected was the collapse to be as dramatic as it has been.
“But look at the (wider) narrative and we’re now going into April roughly where the manager expected them to be.
“It’s just that the fantastic start was followed by such a disappointing middle that changes how people look at things.
“But hopefully they can go on a mini-run to end the season.
“If you told me at the start of the season that finishing fourth would be a disappointment, I probably would have laughed.
“I do think that there’ll be a wee bit of disappointment if we didn’t finish third, even if, before a ball was kicked, I think third might have been exceeding expectations.
“It would be an even bigger disappointment if they only scrape into the top six. If they were to miss out, that would then end up being a disaster of a season after the start they made – I don’t think that’ll be the case, though.”
Ross County trip could be the toughest for Aberdeen
The Dons complete their pre-split fixtures against Motherwell and Rangers at Pittodrie, with a trip to Ross County falling in between the two home matches.
The trip to Dingwall to face the Staggies next weekend is the one Tosh considers the most challenging.
He said: “I’d argue the toughest game left before the split is the trip to Ross County.
“The bottom line is Ross County are fighting for their lives, and Aberdeen will go up there with a major expectation to win the game and get the three points.
“If somebody had said you are in contention for third heading into April and in the Scottish Cup semi-final, I think Aberdeen would have taken it.
“There would be a wee bit of disappointment if third wasn’t achieved and they missed out on the cup final.
“But if they finish third and get to the final, it’s been a good season.
“If they win the cup and finish third, it’s been a fantastic season – that’s how slim the margin is.
“From an Aberdeen standpoint, we know this team is capable of winning football games.
“The negative is that we thought we had third place in the bag by the end of October, and what has happened shows you can’t count your chickens.
“Nobody expected that we’d go on the run that we did and then none of us expected that we’d fall off the cliff like we have either.
“We expected that we’d continue to pick up points. Not to the degree of the first 11 games, but certainly enough to stay ahead of the pack.
“But it’s how we finish the next three games that matter now.”
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