St Johnstone’s Steven Anderson believes that if his side can replicate the gritty determination and hard work they produced against Dundee United in the recent Tayside derby, then they have a big chance of causing an upset against Celtic this weekend.
Saints had lost their two previous games before stopping the rot with a 0-0 draw with Peter Houston’s side.
Now, having regrouped and recharged their batteries over the international break, Anderson and the rest of the Perth squad are raring to go against the defending SPL champions in Saturday’s televised match at McDiarmid Park.
He said: ”We got a clean sheet against United and at times we played them off the park. Those were the positives.
”We defended well as a team, not just as a back four. That is something we have built on over the last couple of years and it has been drilled into us.
”But it is goals that win games. It was frustrating not to score in the derby but at least we were creating chances.
”We have quality strikers here so the goals will come. We now have to build on that point we picked up before the international break. It came at the right time because it hasn’t been a good start to the season and we have had time to regroup.
”We’ve had a chance to go over what went wrong.
”The worry is that losing can become a habit so the point against United was important.
”We are playing Celtic, who have reached the Champions League group stages. It will be a real test of our character but if we work as hard as we did against United we have a real chance.”