Callum Davidson is hoping Hearts’ European exertions can help St Johnstone cause “a little upset” in Sunday’s cinch Premiership clash between the teams at Tynecastle.
The Saints boss has been impressed with the sustained improvement his Jambos counterpart Robbie Neilson has overseen at the Edinburgh club over the past couple of years.
However, he intends to try to capitalise on any physical or mental fatigue in the Hearts ranks after their agonising Europa League play-off defeat at the hands of FC Zurich on Thursday.
“Robbie’s done a fantastic job,” said Davidson. “I really like the way they play football. They’ve got a lot of players with good individual ability and as a collective they’re really good.
“All credit to Robbie and his backroom team. It will be a really tough game. We’ll make sure we’re organised and hard to play against but we need to make sure we pose a threat to them going forward and hopefully we can cause a little upset.
“It’s a tough time when you have a game after playing in Europe on the Thursday and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”
The Jambos are likely to make changes to freshen things up, but Davidson insists Saints will be prepared for whatever team and formation Hearts send out.
“Robbie plays a couple of different formations so we’ll plan for those and make sure we’re ready for whatever comes our way,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we do something a little bit different to try and catch them with a surprise too.”
