The accusation of the team he leads lacking fight against St Mirren last weekend has wounded St Johnstone captain Liam Gordon.
And the Perth centre-back is determined to address it at Livingston on Saturday.
The 11th v 10th battle at McDiarmid Park demanded so much more than it got from the home team.
But Gordon has pledged that the Saints response in West Lothian will be nearer the mark.
He said: “For any professional footballer that’s the basic fundamentals you should have and that was probably the most disappointing part from Saturday’s game – having the fight and character questioned from our behalf.
“It’s something I pride myself upon and it’s disappointing the way it unfolded on Saturday.
“We’ve got a game this weekend to make amends for that.
“It was a horrible result. It wasn’t a great performance and a bad result in terms of avoiding the play-offs.
“Realistically that’s probably away from us now and we just have to accept that and focus on securing the play-off position.
“Dundee can still catch us if we’re not up to it.
“We need to get three points on Saturday.”
The unity between fans and players since the Kelty Hearts Scottish Cup debacle has helped get Saints off the bottom of the Premiership table and five points above Dundee.
Gordon is confident it won’t start to erode with the season coming to a climax.
“I’ve said it since the turn of the year that they’ve been our 12th man and we need them to keep supporting us,” he said.
“It can be difficult at times, especially with what we’ve been going through of late.
“But they’ve stuck by us and hopefully they continue to do that because we need them for one final push.
“We’ve got some massive games coming up and hopefully we can make that big push to secure the play-off spot and stay in the league.”
