Dundee United will press for their SPL match against Gretna to be rearranged for Wednesday evening should it fail a second pitch inspection.The original match, to be held at Gretna's temporary Fir Park home, was cancelled at the weekend because of a waterlogged surface and the prospects of the encounter going ahead as planned on Tueday night do not look good after heavy snow fell in Lanarkshire on Monday.
Motherwell and their tenants have both had their calendar disrupted this season as the Fir Park pitch was hit with drainage problems and struggled to cope with the rigours of having two teams playing at the same venue.
The SPL will announce they are to ban groundsharing in this guise in future after watching a backlog of fixtures build up.
United have prepared for the match to go ahead on Tuesday but if, as expected, the weather emerges as victor once again, Craig Levein wants the game to be staged within 24 hours.
The Tangerines play Rangers in the CIS Cup final next Sunday and have already had their build-up to that disrupted by facing Celtic on Wednesday so, ideally, Levein would like a free weekend before their biggest seven days in years.
He said: "We've spoken to people down there who say there is snow lying on the pitch so it doesn't look too good.
"If the game doesn't go ahead as planned then we'd like to play it on Wednesday.
"We'd prefer to play it in midweek rather than Saturday because it's such an important game and we'd like to get going.
"If they say it's got to be Saturday then we'll play on Saturday but we'd rather it was before then.
"I've got a great deal of sympathy for the SPL because the backlog of fixtures has been horrendous."
Lee Wilkie and Mark Kerr have both recovered from minor knocks they were carrying over the weekend so Levein has a healthy squad to choose from.
He said: "The game going off last week has given us more time to get players fit, so we've benefited from that point of view.
"Lee Wilkie and Mark Kerr were both carrying knocks but they are back again.
"Apart from the guys who have been out long-term, we're in good shape."
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