“You can’t take these games lightly.

“I heard they were bottom of their league so on paper you would look at it and think let’s go and beat Stranraer and move onto the next round. It is not going to be like that. It will be a test for us. They will come here with nothing to lose. They will come up here and give it their best go without much pressure on them. They are not expected to win the game. Us on the other hand, we are expected to go out and win the game.

“We have to make sure we play our normal game. We will prepare in the normal way and do everything we normally would do. You have to prepare properly.

“We have had two cup ties against lower league opposition this season. Against Ayr and against Morton we got the job done but both were tough games and we had to battle hard so we cannot treat this game any differently.
Our last cup game, The League Cup final it was a bitterly disappointing day. We were all gutted as players as you should be. Losing any final is disheartening, especially in the manner we lost. I think we can use the Scottish Cup this season as a way of putting that day right.

“When you are gutted, bitterly disappointed, you want to put things right as quickly as you can. If we can get back to a Hampden final we have a chance to put things right, get revenge, however you want to put it. We will use it as a motivation. We owe the fans one. We feel like we owe ourselves one.

“But there is still a long long way to go and the first obstacle is Stranraer on Saturday.

“We will treat it as a big game. I was at Plymouth before so it was nice to see them doing well against Liverpool in the FA Cup this week although they did eventually go out. It was a reminder, if one was needed, that over 90 minutes’ smaller clubs can compete and can cause you problems.

“In any game of football, you are never going to get things going all your own way.

“It was nice to go on a little bit of a run before we broke up for the winter break. If we were on a bit of a losing streak, then the break and Dubai would not have been as enjoyable. It would have been a very long three weeks.

“There is a lot to look forward to and the players are dying to get back out onto the pitch. There is still a lot to fight for this season.