The last time St Johnstone faced Dundee United a silent protest summed up the divide that had opened up at the McDiarmid club.
Anger at the Rangers Scottish Cup ticket episode was kicking-in and the Fair City Unity section of the East Stand withheld their vocal backing until the second half of a Premiership contest that never caught fire from a Perth perspective.
Dundee United (Home)
02/01/2023 pic.twitter.com/Yk9cNmmNe8— FAIR CITY UNITY (@faircityunity) January 5, 2023
With a fans’ meeting on Monday night helping the healing process off the pitch and the Saints team rediscovering their form on it, manager Callum Davidson is confident that the dark cloud over the ground has passed.
And the fact that around 1,500 tickets have already been sold for Saturday’s trip to Tannadice is another encouraging sign that wounds have healed in time to aid an end of season top six push.
Stick by their team
“I hope so,” said Davidson. “That wasn’t a great time for everyone.
“We probably all admit we don’t have the biggest support but what we do is have a really loyal band of supporters.
“I’ve been here in total for, I don’t know, 14 years and we’ve always had a really good support that’s stuck by the team.
“We get bits of criticism here and there but the majority always get behind the team if they see effort and an energy level.
“If you do that, roll your sleeves up and try and get a victory the St Johnstone fans will stand by you.
“I think they’ve seen that in the last three or four games, since Livingston.
“We always seem to get a good support at Tannadice and it makes a big difference.
“We put a really good performance in there earlier in the season and hopefully we can repeat that.
“I hope they’re enjoying watching us at the moment.”
Davidson, whose team lost 1-0 to United in the new year encounter, added: “I actually watched the game back and we weren’t great first half but we were much better second half.
“The fans were obviously supporting us second half. It does show how important that unity and togetherness is.
“Hopefully the meeting we had the other night there cleared up a lot of things and we get back to trying to win games of football and sticking together, no matter what happens.
“That’s always why we succeed at St Johnstone. That’s the reason. That there’s no divide between players, staff, fans, hierarchy. We stick together.”
Big reward
Saints will open up a 10-point gap on United if they can win.
“It’s a huge game in that respect,” said Davidson. “It would be great to go there and get three points.
“It’s really important we don’t lose the game either.
“We need to make sure we put them under as much pressure as we can and perform to a level and be ready for the fight.
“Results maybe haven’t gone their way but I’ve watched their football and their attacking has been quite good I think.
“We need to make sure we stop that threat.”
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