Mark McGhee has turned the heating down and cut back on his portions to get into the right frame of mind for Saturday’s big game at Dens Park.
And his Dundee players have challenged their manager to go naked for the week if they claim the three points needed to restore hope of Premiership survival.
There’s nothing as bizarre or bold coming out of Perth, however.
For St Johnstone boss, Callum Davidson, focus and form are more important than soundbites and psychology.
“I’ll be going to home to relax and have a gin if we win – that’s all I’ll be doing!” he said after learning about McGhee’s talk of taking his clothes off.
“Mark is a character – I know him well. But we haven’t concentrated on his comments much.
“From our point of view, what I’ve done is show the players the form guide and reiterate what we have achieved in the last few months.
“We were five points behind Dundee at one stage. Now we are five in front of them and six behind St Mirren and Aberdeen.
“So over the last 12 games our form has been pretty good.
“We are up there with Ross County and teams like that.
“So we need to continue what we are doing, be focused, determined and disciplined.”
🎥 WATCH: “The boys have made me promise that if we beat St Johnstone then I’ve got to go naked for a week”.
Dundee boss Mark McGhee is revealing even more unique motivation techniques ahead of tomorrow’s clash with St Johnstone 😳 pic.twitter.com/MtyKBZh2Dp
— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) April 22, 2022
McGhee will have his own reasons for shaking things up in the build-up to the first match after the split.
But Davidson doesn’t feel the need to break with routine.
“When we were successful last season we didn’t change too much and we’re not doing that now either,” he said.
“We are very positive.
“The players are in a good frame of mind and have the belief they can win all five remaining games.
“It will be tough because each fixture is a dangerous one, but if we perform how we can then we’re able to take something from every game.
“The goal is to stay in the league and we have five games to do that.
“This is a big game for us, we want to increase the gap to 12th and put pressure on the teams above us.
📸🌞| Costa del Perth
1 day to go…#SJFC | #TaysideDerby pic.twitter.com/CbsaKbuOwS
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) April 22, 2022
“We have been in this relegation fight since January. We have performed well under pressure.
“It’s not a case we have just found ourselves in a relegation fight suddenly. We knew it in January and have responded to it.
“I have been there before with teams who got dragged into it late on and you don’t know how to respond.
“What we’ve had is we knew we were in the fight and challenged ourselves to respond.
“If we can win this weekend and drag a couple of other teams into it then we’ll be delighted.”
