Blair: Saints on form at right time

Blair Alston believes St Johnstone are hitting form at the perfect time.

And the midfielder, enjoying his first season at the club since joining from Falkirk, insists there is no reason why Saints can’t continue to look above them.

The Perth squad can consolidate their Scottish Premiership position of fourth with victory against Aberdeen at McDiarmid Park this weekend.

“Coming close to the split we’ve probably started playing better,”said 25-year-old Alston.

“A lot of teams feel the pressure at this point but we thrive on it. We’ve had a good result against Hearts and then Inverness. So we have plenty of confidence going into the game.

“We know it will be difficult because Aberdeen are a good team and they are where they are in the league for a reason.

“There is always going to be teams below trying to catch us. But we’ve given ourselves a buffer so we’ll be looking to extend that on Saturday and look ahead instead of behind.”

Alston reckons other clubs will be desperate to emulate Saints’success in recent years.

“People say every year that Saints can’t do it again,”he said. “The team has consistently been in the top six - and challenging higher, rather than scraping in.

“For me personally I would love to experience Europe. But the most important thing is finishing as high as possible.

“It’s been a good season personally but more importantly for the team. There’s no reason why we can’t kick on.

“We’ll look forward to the post-split fixtures. It’s at the stage now where every game is going to be difficult, there won’t be any gimme games.”