ANDREW CONSIDINE insists that he and his St Johnstone team-mates can put a poor start to the new Premiership campaign behind them and go on to achieve a top-four finish this term.
The Perth outfit have lost four of their opening five league matches this season – including a 3-2 defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday afternoon – and find themselves occupying tenth place in the table at this early stage.
Considine, who completed a free transfer to McDiarmid Park after spending the previous 18 years at Aberdeen, scored his first Saints goal in the loss to Robbie Neilson’s team at the weekend.
The veteran centre-half got the final touch on a corner kick to make it 2-2 early on in the second half before a Lawrence Shankland penalty 10 minutes from time sealed a 3-2 win for the Jambos.
Manager Callum Davidson was frustrated after the match as he felt the goals his side gave up were the result of individual errors and Considine remains convinced that one the team cut out the sloppy mistakes, they can go on to have a successful season.
“With football it is the nature of the game,” the 35-year-old said. “They come thick and fast and we will dust ourselves down, look at the game and go over the goals and things.
“We have St Mirren next and we have to do the basics well but we are looking forward to it.
“We have a good group and a lot has been said about the age of some of the boys who have come in. We have a great balance of experience and young boys and I think we will do well this year.
“Our next two are St Mirren and Kilmarnock, two tough games but two teams we will fight with for the majority of the season.
“At the same time we did well enough to get a result on Sunday so it hurts.
“I feel we can be a top six team, 100 per cent, even fourth or fifth. I think the boys in the dressing room are more than capable of it.
“Coming to Tynecastle, we are angry as we should have got a result. Against Aberdeen we should have got something other than a brilliant free-kick.
“We are only five games in but we have thrown away points at times. We need to do better and we want to be in the top half and we have to knuckle down and hopefully it starts on Saturday.”
