More important to him is, that for only the second time in over a month, his men will go into a game having had a whole week to prepare.

“For me, the bottom line is concentrating on my team and what they do, so the big bonus is not having a midweek game this week, rather than knowing St Johnstone have had one,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of games recently and Saturday sees us start a run of three in eight days, so it was important the players got the chance to recover their legs.

“The boys have been able to do that and the ones who played at Kilmarnock last Saturday carrying knocks are going to be OK.”

Key central-defender Andy Webster, out of the last two games with a calf strain, is also making good progress and there is cautious optimism he will be back.

“I’m not counting my chickens, but he is working towards Saturday and, so far, things seem to be going well so, touch wood, he will be OK to play.”

Peter did take the opportunity to head for Hampden to see Saints in action for himself and, despite their defeat, saw enough to confirm nothing will come easy for United.

“St Johnstone started well and took the game to Rangers and, while I wouldn’t go as far as saying Rangers’ first goal was against the run of play, it was a bit of a surprise,” he said.

“As the game went on, Del (Derek McInnes) maybe did not get the quality of final ball he would have wanted, but they put in a decent performance.

“It was yet another semi-final for them and bad teams don’t keep reaching semi-finals, so we know how hard it will be on Saturday.”