Callum Davidson has called on St Johnstone to put on a show for their 2,000 travelling fans against Hibernian on Saturday.
The Edinburgh club have launched a ‘Football For a Fiver’ initiative for the match in which all tickets are available for just £5.
It is set to result in a full house at Easter Road, with the Perth side expected to take one of their biggest travelling supports to a league match for several years.
“The uptake of the support has been brilliant,” said manager Davidson. “It’s going to be a full house and it’s a great place to play football. 2,000 is an unbelievable number for St Johnstone to take, so I just hope we can play with passion and enthusiasm and give them something to cheer.
“It’ll be a great occasion but we need to make sure we turn up and perform.”
Both sides are hit by injuries and Davidson believes the key to victory in the capital is to ensure the home side are not allowed to build up an early head of steam.
“They’re a good team,” he said. “They’ve got a few injuries themselves, but they’ve got good strength in their squad. It’ll be a tough game. We need to start really well and make sure their supporters don’t get behind them.”
Saints, who are a point ahead of Dundee at the bottom of the cinch Premiership, have lost their last two games – away to Ross County and at home to Rangers.
Davidson nevertheless believes his team, who welcome back key trio Zander Clark, Murray Davidson and Glenn Middleton, are still in decent shape overall.
“Apart from part of the Ross County game, we’ve been pretty good for the last six or seven games,” he said. “We could have crumbled after losing an early goal against Rangers in midweek, but we had a real go.
“That energy level and tempo we showed against Rangers has to stay. If it doesn’t, we’ll be in trouble.”
