Joe Shaughnessy believes St Johnstone “owe the home fans” a win against Ross County tomorrow – after saving most of their good work this season for away trips.
The Perth side have won at Ibrox and Easter Road this season, and drawn twice at Celtic, but are enduring a miserable McDiarmid Park run of form.
Turning that round with a victory against Owen Coyle’s men would be an encouraging start to three home fixtures in quick succession.
“It’s a big game against Ross County and we have three coming up next week,” said the Saints skipper. “It’s important to get a good start on Saturday.
“They are always close games against Ross County and it is always going to be hard.
“They have made a few signings and tend to come on strong towards the end of the season.
“We also owe the home fans a good performance and a result.
“The home form has not been good enough and we know that. It’s a case of getting back to what we’re good at.
“We know how big a game it is this weekend. We will look after ourselves and work hard.”
After doing so well against the Premiership’s top team on Sunday, Saints can’t afford to let their standards slip against the bottom one.
“It was back to how we should be playing every week,” said Shaughnessy of the 0-0 draw at Parkhead.
“It was nice to keep a clean sheet. We dealt with their attacking threat well and at the same time we created some pretty good chances.
“We needed a strong performance and we need to use Sunday as a start to really kick on. We need to put in more performances like that. We are capable of it.
“We owed it to ourselves, the manager and our fans. The problem we have had is consistency.
“The performances in the past couple of weeks have not been up to scratch.
“We need to look at pushing ourselves away from the bottom before we start looking at the top six again.”
Youngster Jason Kerr has adapted quickly to the demands of top flight football, while Shaughnessy believes that veteran Steven Anderson also deserves credit for his performance last weekend.
“Jason did very well for his first game at Parkhead,” said the Irishman.
“He dealt with Edouard and then Dembele when he came on.
“He made a great tackle near the end and has done really well since coming into the team.
“It was good for myself and Ando to get back to what we had been doing before Christmas.
“We had not really played well as a team since the break and were losing bad goals.
“We all knew what our jobs were at Celtic and we carried it out. Our fitness levels were good to maintain the performance for the 90 minutes.
“Sometimes you go to Celtic Park and do it for an hour before their fitness level takes over.”
