Tony Gallacher believes St Johnstone can rely on the Perth stalwarts in the squad to ensure visitors to McDiarmid Park get a rough ride until the end of the season.
The Perth side have three fixtures to play before the Premiership split, two of which, against Dundee and Kilmarnock, are at home.
With the situation at the bottom of the Premiership very tight, the race to avoid the play-off spot in particular is likely to go to the wire.
And Gallacher, who is hopeful of retaining a place in Craig Levein’s side after making an impact against Celtic, reckons taking points in Perth will be crucial to Saints’ hopes.
“We need to go into it with the mind-set of it being a game at a time until the end of the season,” he said.
“We can’t get bogged down with how the league’s looking. We just need to focus on ourselves and pick up points.
“There are boys who’ve been here – Mayzo (Stevie May)s been here a while, Gordy (Liam Gordon)’s the main [man] at the back.
“They know exactly what it’s been like playing here the last few years.
“People should come [to McDiarmid Park] and know they’re up against it at St Johnstone. We’ll try to keep it that way.”
Dundee are first up at McDiarmid, with the all-Tayside clash set to take place on Saturday.
Gallacher has been in and out of the side under Craig Levein but he hopes his display from the bench at Celtic Park, where he set up Connor Smith for Saints’ goal, will win his manager’s favour.
“It always helps to try and have an impact as a sub,” he told Saints TV.
“You need to do your best to deliver that quality. There’s been times subs, we all know ourselves, have come on and maybe not had that impact the manager’s looking for at the time.
“So for all the subs to play their part [at Celtic] was a massive positive.
“It’s a very competitive squad. You’ve got multiple players in different positions but you’ve only got 11 who can go out on the park.
“That’s football in a nutshell. You do all you can in training and when you get your chance, do all you can to stay in that team.”
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