Paul McGowan challenges Dundee team-mates to put together festive form that can propel them into top-six contention – starting against St Johnstone tonight

Paul McGowan says it’s time for Dundee to prove they can climb the Premiership table by seeing off bogey side St Johnstone tonight.

The Dark Blues are yet to put back-to-back wins together in the league this season but can do so this evening to follow up their impressive 3-0 win over Motherwell at the weekend.

A victory would be Dundee’s first in eight matches against Saints with the Perth side on a seven-game winning streak.

Three points tonight, though, would see Dundee out of the bottom two and above Callum Davidson’s side.

Wary

Having seen every high and low at Dens Park over the past seven years, McGowan, however, is wary of getting ahead of himself despite the quality of the weekend display.

“St Johnstone will be worried about us,” he said.

“They will be watching videos of us on Saturday where every one of us was at it and that’s what we have to produce again.

“I think you can see a difference in the boys now, the place is buzzing.

“But, it’s Dundee so we can’t take anything lightly. We aren’t taking anything for granted and neither is the manager.

“We have to prove we can do it over five or six games, that’s how you get success in this league.

“What we need is consistency, the way we played last week had been coming and we need to do that more.

“It will take the same again to beat St Johnstone.

“They have had a few bad results lately but they are always hard to play against, they’re solid.

“So we will have to play the way we played against Motherwell. It’s a test of whether we can be consistent.”

‘No doubt we can climb the table and get in the top six’

Saturday’s clash with Motherwell was the first of a run of nine games in just five weeks for Dundee through the festive period.

Through that run are key games against sides in and around them in the Premiership table.

And McGowan says there is an opportunity at hand to set ambitions a little higher if the Dark Blues can string some results together.

“This period will shape the season and define what we are going to be playing for,” the midfielder added.

“Our ambitions are top six.

“Obviously, we haven’t started well but if we can string a few results together then that would be good because the league is so tight.

“The bottom six or seven are clustered.

“If we play like we did on Saturday then there is no doubt we can climb the table and get in the top six.”