Ross County manager Stuart Kettlewell says the Staggies must eradicate a soft centre in order to rack up more points in the coming weeks.
County enjoyed fluent spells of attacking play against Celtic at Victoria Park on Saturday, however slack defending cost them dearly in their eventual 5-0 defeat.
Although Kettlewell would happily see his side recreate their open play performance against the Hoops, he says the Staggies must show greater resistance when defending their penalty box when they face St Johnstone away on Saturday.
Kettlewell said: “If they give me that level of performance for the next 30-something games, I would be genuinely delighted.
“But the finer details inside the penalty box have to improve.
“It would be very naive of me to say I’d be happy if the whole performance and everything about the game stayed the same.
“From three set plays, a penalty and from being slack in possession Celtic scored their goals. We need to turn those situations in our favour.
“We need to make sure we don’t have that soft centre. Getting 95% of the performance would suit me, but what we do in and around the penalty box has to be better.
“We work on it again this week and look to improve. The only way you can do that is through repetition and re-creating those situations.
“That’s what I intend to do this week. But I hope we can mirror the level of performance in open play.”
County face a challenging run of fixtures, with Saturday’s trip to Perth followed by games against high-flying sides Aberdeen, Rangers and Hibernian.
Kettlewell hopes the tough tests can draw better performances out of his own side, adding: “We had said we wanted to amass points early in the season then you look at a tough run of fixtures.
“But if you are not enjoying that then you probably shouldn’t be here.
“I embrace that run of fixtures as well because it gives us an opportunity to take it to another level yourself.
“If you can add that result in there as well and pitch in points I think it gives you a huge boost.”
Kettlewell was pleased with how smoothly the Staggies’ test event with 300 fans ran against Celtic, although the indicative date for the permanent return of spectators has been moved back until October 5.
Kettlewell added: “There was a slightly better energy about the place with 300 fans. It was nice to have an effort at goal or a decent piece of defending and hear some sort of reaction from the crowd, small as it was.
“It was still a major positive and something I hope we can take forward in the next few weeks. Aberdeen organised it in a slightly different set-up and both clubs have to take a huge amount of credit for what was a pressure situation.
“It is all fine and well saying we want to be the club to get supporters back into the ground, but both clubs were carrying the can for everyone else. If it didn’t work, everyone would have used us as a bad example.”
