Davidson insists players will pull together
back against Livingston.
“People are entitled to their opinions and calling us a disgrace was probably a bit strong, but you have to be big enough to accept criticism,” Davidson said.
“It is part and parcel of the game, you have to deal with it. We didn’t go down there intending to lose 7-0, we are hurting because of it.
“It was a horrible day for everyone involved, it’s been a bad weekend. We will take the criticism we’re getting on board and will come out the other side.
“You shouldn’t need someone to call us a disgrace to motivate you, so to be honest it doesn’t affect us.
“The motivation will come from within, we have that motivation in the squad to get our season up and running anyway.
“The place is hurting, we let ourselves and the club down. It has to improve. It’s one game into the season so nobody is going to go into their shell.
“Over the years we have made a point of not overreacting to good results and we don’t overreact to bad ones either.
“When you have had a result like we had you just want to get back out and sort it. I have been here a long time now and I’ve seen these runs before. If we bounce back on Saturday and get a result, the outlook will change again.
“It’s up to us as players. The fans can’t change it and pundits giving us a kicking won’t change it, we have to go out and get results.”
Davidson was impressed with how Celtic shaped up but admits Saints made it far too easy for them on the day.
He told the PA: “It was always going to be difficult going there on the opening day but we didn’t make it nearly hard enough for Celtic.
“We contributed to a lot of their goals and now we have to put it right. We have to put everything into a positive result against Livingston this weekend.
“There are a lot of things we need to improve on, we know where we went wrong at Celtic Park and we have to rectify it.
“The senior players have to help the young lads because most of them probably haven’t been through a spell like this before.
“But we have, the manager has and we have to all use our Davidson in action against Celtic
experience to help them.
“There are things I feel we should have done much better so I’ll speak to the lads. I’m sure the other older players will too.
“We can help them but the young boys have to speak out too, if they have seen something then they need to be vocal too.”
Saints, who are understood to have reopened talks with striker Stevie May, were back hard at training on Monday morning.
Davidson reckons the introduction of new faces can give the squad a lift following a disappointing few weeks of competitive football.
“We need to bring players in and if we get a few new faces in it would give the place a massive lift,” said Davidson.
“When new players come into a squad it makes a big difference.
“So we will see what happens, but if nobody comes in before the weekend it will be up to the boys who do play to be better.”