Dundee defender Ryan Sweeney is not reading anything into the fact opponents St Johnstone are going into Wednesday’s bottom-of-the-table showdown on the back of a 10-game losing streak.
The Dark Blues halted their own run of six consecutive defeats with a much-needed win away to cinch League One side Dumbarton in the Scottish Cup on Saturday, while Saints’ misery continued as they crashed out at the hands of League Two side Kelty Hearts.
Despite the Perth side’s dire form, Dundee are only two points above them at the foot of the cinch Premiership and Sweeney recalls losing twice to them earlier in the season before having to scrap for a 1-0 victory at Dens Park at the start of December.
He said: “It’s obviously two teams who have been struggling for form of late. We’ve played them three times this season and they were all really tough games. We beat them 1-0 last time so hopefully we can get a repeat of that.
“We’ve had a few opportunities to distance ourselves from the bottom of the table and this is another one, so we’ll be doing our best to take it. We go there in good confidence after our win over Dumbarton at the weekend.
“We need to show a bit more quality than we did on Saturday but in terms of scrapping for every ball and defending set-pieces, if we can do that and give ourselves a solid base we have good attacking players who can go and create.”
Sweeney is adamant St Johnstone – who won both the League Cup and the Scottish Cup last term – are still a dangerous opponent.
He said: “You don’t win two cups for nothing, like they did last year. They were obviously riding high after what was an unbelievable achievement last year but then sometimes you can get in a rut and it’s not easy to turn it around.
“I’m sure they’ll be just as fired up as we are. It will be two teams going at it.”
