St Johnstone defender James Brown reckons Wednesday night’s point against Dundee was a “tiny step in the right direction”.
And the 24-year-old hopes that stopping the miserable run of consecutive defeats has provided a platform to turn the season around.
The Perth stalemate still went down as a missed opportunity but Saints did manage to stop short of losing an 11th match on the bounce.
Still bottom of the Premiership pile, Callum Davidson’s side now head for the north east on Saturday afternoon to face an Aberdeen team that lost out to St Mirren earlier in the week.
Wing-back Brown said: “If you came to watch on Wednesday, you wouldn’t be going away thrilled to be honest.
“As cliché as it sounds, you need to take the positives from a game like that. There was the clean sheet which I guess is a start.
“It’s a tiny step in the right direction but we obviously know that we still need to be better.
“With the run we’ve been on, a clean sheet and a point gives us a platform to build on to try and push up the league.
“The result has stopped the rot. It hasn’t been easy, confidence has been low, but the clean sheet can breed confidence.”
The return of striker Callum Hendry went down as a positive, although Brown says there needed to be more service for the striker.
“Callum gives us real energy and something a bit different,” Brown said.
“He’s good to have up there because you know he’ll give everything. That is what you need when you’re in a fight – players to do the ugly stuff – but technically he is also a very good player.
“We need to provide more balls into the box for whoever is playing up there. You need to put the opposition under as much pressure as possible. I think we’ve come away from what we did last year.
“There are things we need to improve on but at times in the first half I thought we did force them into mistakes.
“We looked a better team at times but we need to continue that.”
Brown again lined-up alongside January arrival Dan Cleary, who also had a solid enough game to keep Dundee at bay.
“Dan has done well,” Brown said. “It can be tough coming into a new environment but he has a lot to say in a positive way.
“He is a leader and at times like this that is what you need. So he’s fitted in well and he will get even better.”
For Brown, he is currently shouldering responsibility in the right wing-back role with Shaun Rooney and Michael O’Halloran absent.
“Whether we get someone else in to fill the berth, I don’t know,” he noted.
“You want competition. It’s not ideal to have had Shaun and Mikey out, especially because of what they bring to the side.
“From a selfish point of view, you want to play because, in the situation we’re in, you want to help get this club back up the league.
“The more options as a squad, the better. We trained on Tuesday and had 22 or 23 players for the first time in a long time. That’s what you need because you don’t want players who are safe in the team.”
