St Johnstone walked a gauntlet of rage from their own fans after losing their grip on the Scottish Cup in Saturday’s calamity at Kelty.
But Callum Booth insists the Perth faithful proved there’s no division in the ranks in the midweek draw with Dundee as the they look to maintain their foothold in the top flight.
Saintees turned up the volume in Wednesday’s Premiership basement battle after unfurling a banner pledging ‘We'll keep the blue flag flying high’ ahead of kick off.
They may have missed the opportunity to leapfrog their Tayside rivals in the 0-0 draw.
But after ending a horrendous run of 10 straight defeats in all competitions Booth is adamant St Johnstone are entering the relegation dogfight on a united front as he praised the support.
He said: “Emotions were running high after a really, really bad result at Kelty. The set-up wasn’t the best there either.
“Fans are going to be emotional right after full-time but what went unnoticed was a lot of fans helping us and still supporting us, giving us good messages.
“Against Dundee they were absolutely brilliant again. It’s just a shame we couldn’t give them a better performance and get that goal we all really wanted.
“But there’s definitely no complaints about the fans. Saturday wasn’t nice to see but it was just one of those things and they were definitely with us against Dundee.”
Booth was a key man as Saints cemented their place in history with an incredible cup double last year.
The left back is as puzzled as anyone at the dramatic turn in fortunes that sees Callum Davidson’s side sit four points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership and having surrendered both pieces of silverware before the end of January.
Ahead of tomorrow’s trip to face Aberdeen the 30-year-old said: “The pressure is the complete opposite to what we were used to last season.
“Challenging for cups, going to Hampden and winning a double then playing European ties. All of a sudden - and very quickly - it’s totally flipped and we are in a really difficult situation.
“It’s a different pressure. But then there’s always pressure when you play football.
“Once you cross the white line you just focus on your performance and try not to think about the noise that’s around with the run we are on.
“Hopefully the Dundee draw is the first step on us building our way back up and away from the bottom.
“It was probably a terrible watch. But to stop the awful run we’d been on was something. We need to take any positives we can.
“We defended well and to be honest we’ve not been doing that as well as we had previously been renowned for.”
Saints head to Aberdeen tomorrow without Nadir Ciftci who looks to be out for the medium term after pulling his hamstring against Dundee and joins Shaun Rooney, Craig Bryson and David Wotherspoon on the sidelines.
Booth said: “We’re not having much luck. Nadir has come in and he’s been brilliant.
“The couple of games he’s played he has shown flashes of his quality and in training you can see if we get him up to speed he will be a huge player for us.
“The last time I diagnosed an injury I got it wrong with Wotherspoon when I thought he was ok! So I’ll not bother diagnosing this one.
“But if his hamstring has gone early in the game when he’s chasing a ball then then it’s never a good sign.”
