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St Johnstone won’t take Partick Thistle lightly, says Davidson

Murray Davidson hopes to be celebrating again on Saturday.
Murray Davidson hopes to be celebrating again on Saturday.

Wins at Ibrox and Pittodrie, with a 10-man derby comeback against Dundee United in between them, will go down as one of the best hat-tricks any St Johnstone team has completed.

But Murray Davidson insists there will be no danger of the Perth men taking the challenge of second-bottom Partick Thistle lightly on the back of it.

According to the Saints midfielder the desire for a victory will be just as intense at McDiarmid Park this afternoon as it was for the trio of games that preceded it.

“We don’t get carried away and it is the same after three terrific results,” he pointed out. “I keep telling people that in this league if you drop your standards you will get beat.

“We just have to focus on ourselves and what we do, as we have done in our last three games.

“At the start of the season we lost matches through individual mistakes. We have been a bit better defensively in recent weeks and we have been clinical, scoring goals at the other end.

“We always knew it would turn. And it is so important we don’t take out foot off the gas now as we try to get another positive result.”

And according to Davidson there is no reason that the international break should disrupt their hard-earned momentum.

The former Livingston man said: “I always think it is important to get a positive result going into an international break and we did that at Aberdeen.

“You’d much rather the break came on the back of a victory than a defeat. It works both ways. Lose a game and you are itching to get back to put it right.

“Now it is really important to start off against Partick where we left off at Pittodrie.

“The manner of our recent wins has been impressive. The Rangers result was fairly convincing and they had come off something like 10 games without defeat. Even better was the win over Dundee United because we were down to 10 men. Then we had the 5-1 win at Pittodrie.

“Partick had their first win against United before the break and will take confidence from that.

“We have an experienced squad here and that helps us cope with the ups and downs over the course of a season. That is a big help.

“Every year we seem to admit we haven’t started well but we know results will pick up.”

Davidson has never known competition for places like there currently is at McDiarmid.

If Alan Mannus, Chris Millar and Michael O’Halloran return today it will be at the expense of players who have been performing well.

He said: “We are all wise enough to know that over the course of a season you can’t do well with just 14 or 15 players.

“You are going to need 20 or 21 and this is the strongest squad we have had since I came to the club. Just look at our bench this weekend. We have real strength in depth.

“Take Simon Lappin. He came on against United and scored a winner. That sort of quality is vitally important, especially coming into a period when the games come thick and fast.

“It’s far better having a healthy squad for competition rather than the team picking itself, which has been the case at times here.”