St Johnstone are already pressure-hardened, according to manager Callum Davidson.
Now the post-split fixtures will give them the opportunity to see if the same applies to relegation rivals who have dropped out of the Premiership mid-table comfort zone.
The Perth boss believes his team can widen the basement battle out from a two-way one.
And should they succeed in doing so, their experience of life looking up at the rest of the league will stand them in good stead.
“All five games will be difficult because the pressure is on,” said Davidson, whose side face Dundee first and then St Mirren. “And that’s the same for the teams above us too.
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗥𝗨𝗡 𝗜𝗡 📆
The final five league games of our 21/22 season 👊
We start with a massive away game against @DundeeFC on the 23rd of April.#SJFC pic.twitter.com/QndbEE678C
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) April 11, 2022
“They are all winnable but we know they will be difficult to play in.
“We have a chance to drag the teams above us into it and that’s what we wanted to do a few months ago.
“We have handled the pressure well so far.
“We are hardened to it now and we have to keep that going over the next five games.
“Now we want to make it pressure football for the teams above us and if we can go on a little run in the bottom six we’d do that.”
Celtic defeat won’t knock them off course
As disappointing as Saints’ performance at Parkhead was on Saturday, Davidson is confident that the 7-0 defeat won’t be a momentum-breaker.
“If you take away the Celtic game then we’re in decent form,” he added.
“Obviously we’d like to be higher up the table and have more points on the board.
“But there was a stage Dundee and ourselves were well adrift – and we were bottom for a long time.
“So we have given ourselves a chance of getting out of it.
“We need to win games if we’re going to have the teams above us getting nervous and looking over their shoulders.
“If we can apply that pressure then they might start making mistakes. That’s the position we want to put ourselves in.
“The spirit among the lads has been excellent and even though we had a tough afternoon against Celtic, that won’t affect us.
📺🆕| Liam Gordon spoke to #SaintsTV following today’s disappointing result. #SJFC pic.twitter.com/sfOlLT9uQn
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) April 9, 2022
“We will put that game to one side and focus on the job in hand, which is winning as many of the last five games as we can.
“The Celtic game was a sore one. We were disappointed the way we lost the goals.
“We didn’t match them the way we wanted and that was disappointing but we just have to pick ourselves up and go again.”
Davidson revealed that an ankle injury kept Nadir Ciftci out of the Celtic match but the former Dundee United man will soon return to training.
“He tried to train through it but it was too sore so he missed the Celtic game,” he said.
“We expect him back in training this week.
“We’ll have a tough week’s training getting ready for the post-split games.”
