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The Perth side can realistically finish in the top six this season.

"We're on a budget similar to St Mirren and Hamilton," McInnes said. "Of course, we want top six, but there's got to be a realism.

"We're up against a lot of big clubs - Hibs, Dundee United, Motherwell, Aberdeen - to try and get into that next bracket."

With bottom club Hamilton 16 points behind St Johnstone, McInnes still believes his side need to consolidate their SPL status.

"The players will give everything they can to get as many points as we can to try and get there, but there's a few points to get, I feel, to make sure the SPL safety's there and I don't make any apologies for that.

"We need to work towards it - that's our first target."

Of the game against United, McInnes admitted the McDiarmid Park pitch made it difficult for either side to find fluency.

"It was a frustrating night for the players, both sets of players. It was difficult to get any pace or tempo on the surface," McInnes told BBC Scotland.

"There's no point in bleating and moaning about it.

"We're well aware of the difficulties of our pitch. We want nothing more to have a good surface."

McInnes says the Perth club aim to replace the pitch at the end of the season.

"The chairman's already indicated that, as soon as we can, towards the end of the season, the last game, we'll be ripping this pitch up and ready to start the work," McInnes said.

"We want to take pride in our surface. A lot of surfaces are suffering because the winter has run from the first real bad snap we had in the first week in November. We're now almost into March and we're still getting difficult conditions.

"The pitch has suffered and it's not got good enough drainage to try and cope with that and it's brought everything to a head.

McInnes was pleased with his side's defensive prowess against a United team he rates highly.

"The two teams showed each other a lot of respect," he said. "It's a good point. We wanted all three.

"The one area where we let ourselves down was that we had plenty of traffic in and around their box through set plays and the like and I don't think we took full advantage of it. Murray Davidson's had a good chance that's just gone by the post.

"I never felt we were going to lose a goal and that's a great feeling to have as a manager.

"The other side of it was, you want to make sure you try and carry more of a threat and I don't think either side showed enough quality in the last wee bit. But, as I say, I think there are factors in that."

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