Dundee United manager Jackie McNamara believes having tomorrow's match with Inverness to look forward to could provide the ideal tonic for his side.

United endured their second straight Scottish Premiership defeat at the weekend - a 2-0 home loss to St Johnstone following on the heels of their 3-2 reverse at Kilmarnock.

The loss took some of the shine off what had otherwise been an impressive run of recent form for the fourth-top Tangerines, who also have next month's Scottish League Cup Final with Celtic to contest.

But McNamara, whose men lost thanks to a first-half double from Michael O'Halloran, hopes going straight back into action against John Hughes' Caley Thistle can spark his team back into life.

He said: "It's good to have the Inverness fixture to look forward to.

"The games are coming thick and fast at this stage of the season so we have to move forward.

"We have to forget this one and look towards the next one which is Inverness. We'll obviously be looking for an improvement.

"We were pretty poor all round to be honest. We can't dwell on it though."

Meanwhile, St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright saluted his players after watching O'Halloran open the scoring inside 10 minutes before doubling their advantage a minute before the break.

And he insisted it was all down to his players as they stepped up their push for a top-six place.

Wright said: "The lads were great. We went about it the right way from start to finish.

"I don't think there could be any complaints about us winning 2-0 on the day.

"It should give us encouragement for the weeks ahead. We want to build on this now.

"Our tactics worked well and we didn't allow them to settle.

"Bringing Frazer Wright back helped a lot because he kept Nadir Ciftci pretty quiet.

"Overall, though, they all played their part.

"It's never easy coming to Tannadice but we put in a very professional performance and deserved the three points."