Zach Mitchell reckons a widespread belief that St Johnstone are destined for the drop is helping to fuel Simo Valakari’s revival against relegation.
Saints defied the odds and the doom-mongers to stun Celtic last Sunday – less than 24 hours after wins for Kilmarnock and Dundee seemed to seal their fate.
The dynamic in the Saints camp was entirely unaffected by Saturday’s scoreline setbacks.
Now Valakari’s side travel to Tannadice seeking another upset against European hopefuls Dundee United.
And centre back Mitchell, on loan from Charlton Athletic, says every player is savouring the prospect of proving people wrong.
Mitchell said: “I don’t think you can find being down the bottom of the league enjoyable.
“But, when you’re in the position we’re in, you get written off and underestimated.
“That gives you a freedom in a way; it can be quite liberating and that’s something we’ve tried to utilise.
“Are we still written off? Maybe not after last Sunday’s result! But we’re still bottom, so possibly people are.
“We’ve not written ourselves off, though. We’ll continue to have that belief.
“Obviously, we know the situation we are in. We are not oblivious to it.
“Although we’ve had some good moments lately, we know the job is far from being done.
“Last week, we saw the Dundee result before we played Celtic but we didn’t get disheartened.
“We have a strong mentality here and I think we showed that. A lot of that is down to the manager and how he approaches things.”
Saints are presented with the chance of turning the tables on relegation rivals Dundee today when facing their city rivals at Tannadice.
Victory over United would narrow the gap on the Dark Blues to two points ahead of Tony Docherty’s team tackling on-form Hibernian tomorrow.
Narrowing the gap
Mitchell noted: “Last weekend, the gap grew before we played on the Sunday.
“Hopefully this weekend we can narrow it before the other games. We want to build on the Celtic result now and the focus since then has been on the Dundee United match.
“Obviously we’ve taken a lot of confidence from it but we’ve also been looking at the things we have to do better.
“There’s a real positive mood in the camp but it was like that anyway even before the Celtic game.
“The spirit has been top class, we showed we can defend well against waves of attack and create chances ourselves.
“What we need to do is use the momentum from last week and take it into this game.”
Mitchell and defensive colleague Daniels Balodis will be up against one of the division’s top strikers in Sam Dalby.
On 14, the on-loan Wrexham man is only one goal behind Simon Murray and Daizen Maeda in the top scorer charts.
Mitchell played against Dalby last season when on loan at Colchester United.
“Dalby is a good striker, he’s done really well this season and has scored a lot of goals,” said the 20-year-old.
“He’s a real handful, he’s big, physical and knows where the goal is.
“We’ve been looking at their threats and discussing what we need to do to nullify them. We’re going to have to stand up to their physicality.
“As a defender, you have to do that and work out the time to stand off and when to get tight.
“That’s been one of the biggest learning things I’ve done over the last year or so.”
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