And the United gaffer reads nothing into the fact that Caley’s form suggests they tend to save their best performances for on the road — four of their five league wins have come away from home.

“Maybe they play a different system away from home which is more suited to a counter-attacking style,” said Craig.

“But, I think you’ll find that last season was the complete opposite and I don’t think their away form will have any real bearing on Saturday’s game,” said Craig.

“What I do know is that they have definitely improved since last season and it’s a difficult place to go to get a result.

“We’ve had mixed success up there over the last few seasons with a couple of wins and a couple of defeats.

“But the main thing for me is that, hopefully, we can take things on from last Saturday’s win at St Mirren.

“After this weekend, we have Rangers, Hearts, Falkirk then Celtic, so we have a difficult run of games coming up.”

Meanwhile, with conditions treacherous outside, United were again forced to train indoors today, restricting their preparation for the weekend.

“With the game getting so close, it’s not ideal, but we have to get on with it,” said the manager.

“Training indoors is not ideal, though, and we have to be careful with guys like Keith Watson and Lee Wilkie on the harder surface.”

Craig felt yesterday’s meeting of SPL bosses at Hampden was a worthwhile exercise.

Believed to be on the agenda were talks about the SPL’s U/21 substitute rule, league expansion, SPL2, a winter break, video replays and — a subject close to most top-flight bosses’ hearts — referees.

“It was a chance to discuss a number of things,” said Craig.

“But there’s not really much to report. It’s an on-going thing and we’ll have another meeting in January.”