The Doonhamers host in-form Inverness Caley Thistle tonight (Tuesday) before welcoming Stevie Farrell’s Dumbarton on Saturday.
With the table tight, Queens do need to claw back some points on their play-off and, perhaps, title rivals.
The good news is that Queens have been brilliant at home this season but they take on admin-hit Caley – who are in touching distance from Annan in eighth despite being deducted 15 points earlier this campaign – who have been tremendous on the road recently.
Inverness trounced Annan 3-0 at Galabank whilst Murphy’s men lost 3-1 to St Mirren in the Scottish Cup.
And Murphy hopes his side are fighting fit after gruelling cup contest and for part two of a Palmy trilogy this week.
He said: “Inverness are wracking up the points after their administration. They’d probably be in the top four if they didn’t get deducted them points. They are a good strong side.
“We’ve got the make sure we recover from Saturday. On the other side of that, Inverness have travelled down to Annan on Saturday.
“I’m not sure if they would stay down here until the game due to being in administration or will have to make the long journey down again.
“Both teams will have to recover as best as they can.
“Our game against on Saturday was considerably tougher with the pace St Mirren played at. But to be fair the players didn’t get punished too much physically, it might have been a different story if we played extra time.
“We’ve got to take confidence from the cup tie and hopefully everybody is available on Tuesday night.”
Queens will be able to call upon new loan striker Jordan Allan after he was cup-tied last Saturday.
Allan knows his way to go and is a player Murphy tried to nab during the summer transfer window.
He added: “We tried to bring Jordan in during the summer but having him playing with Ian McCall at Clyde last season, he chose to go back there. Now Ian has left Clyde and with him in the last six months of his contract with Falkirk.
“He’s sees the opportunity to get himself in the shop window and wants to play full time. We’ll see how he gets on with us.”
Murphy paid tribute to Pharrell Willis who had his loan spell cut short due to a hamstring injury he picked up against Alloa last year.
He said: “We spoke to Middlesbrough two weeks ago about Pharrell. He was about three weeks away from just starting training.
“He would then need to do an extra week with Middlesbrough before coming to us and would probably take two-to-three further weeks to get up to speed.
“Pharrell can hopefully go on loan down south when he’s ready.
“I look forward to see how he develops his career because he was excellent for us.”
Murphy provided an update on Kai Kennedy and told fans not to expect the dazzling winger on the park anytime soon.
He added: “Kai is just back running at this moment in time. We’re building up the running and testing his hamstring and fatigue levels. He’s a number of weeks away.”
