Dundee United defender Sean Dillon insists the Tangerines plan to resume normal service, despite seeing their winning run come to a halt.
United gained plaudits as their free-scoring form took them to six straight wins, and centre half Dillon maintains that style of play will not waver following the 4-1 Boxing Day defeat at St Mirren.
“It’s a small blip,” he stressed.
“The scoreline makes it look worse but I’d rather lose one game 4-1 than four games 1-0.
“We were going to lose at one stage but it’s about keeping the blips to a minimum and if you’re going to lose a game then make sure it’s one defeat in ‘x’ amount of games.
“Give St Mirren their due, they closed us down very well and probably got a little bit rougher than other teams have been.
“I won’t go down the road of being critical of officials but if teams are going to be physical outside of the rules then you expect them to be punished for that.
“But we didn’t play as well as we could have. Is that purely down to St Mirren being rough? I don’t think so.
“We weren’t terrible but when you set such a high standard as we did in recent weeks then it’s frustrating when that doesn’t happen.
“But I’d be very surprised if the manager turned round and said ‘I want you to stop passing and go and try and kick people’.
“At the same time it’s important that if teams want to get a little bit physical then we need to accept it and deal with it and hope that if they overstep the mark officials deal with it and if they don’t then we need to deal with it.
“The least you can expect from us is a hard-working display and you hope your quality will shine through eventually after five minutes, 10 or 90.
“We’ve got some great players in the team and they’re being highly tipped not because they’re going to go out and bash people but because they’re top quality players and I don’t see them being asked to do anything other than to go out and perform as they have been.”
Dillon could well find himself back in the starting line-up against St Johnstone following Keith Watson’s straight red card on Thursday and admits it has been a frustrating time on the sidelines.
“If the team aren’t playing well and you’re not in the team then you can knock on the gaffer’s door and have a chat about it but when the team’s playing really well it’s tougher to do that,” he continued.
“If you’re not playing then I’d rather be kept out by a team playing well.
“If you can’t get into a team that’s playing well then it’s not good but if you can’t get into a team that’s not playing well then that’s worse. It’s been a really good period and everyone wants to be part of it.”
United boss Jackie McNamara would love a repeat of the 4-0 victory they managed over Saints in August.
“St Johnstone on their own patch are quite dangerous with Stevie May and Nigel Hasselbaink, and it’s something we need to be switched on to,” he added.
“But we’re confident we can go there and come back with three points. It was thin lines between winning and losing the St Mirren game but I’ll be basically saying the same things as I said when we were winning 4-0 or 4-1.”