JIM McAlister admits Morton players are still haunted by their six-goal mauling at Tannadice.

The Ton skipper is determined to exorcise the demons of the September humiliation at the hands of Dundee United and has rallied his players to be at it right from the first whistle against the league leaders on Saturday.

He believes that the Ton are more than capable of pulling off a result after an encouraging performance against St Johnstone in the Scottish 
Cup.

McAlister admitted that the nightmare has been hard to forget and has called for a performance similar to the 1-1 draw last term.

He told the Tele: “We’re going to be playing a team of a similar standard this week, so we know that we’re more than worthy of getting a result if we compete in the same way as we did against St Johnstone.

“We spoke about it so much the last time we were up at Tannadice. We were two goals down inside four minutes, which can’t happen at any level.

“If you go up there and start the game well, then we can frustrate them and then we can start to impose ourselves on the game, but ultimately you need to stop the supply going up to Lawrence Shankland.

“If you give him half an inch, he’s going to stick it in the back of the net nine times out of ten.

“The 6-0 defeat is still something that haunts us at the back of our minds and we definitely haven’t forgotten about it.

“It wasn’t enjoyable to be a part of it at all and it was frustrating as well because we had gone up the year before and competed really well with them. 

“I think it was Fraser Fyvie who scored in the 91st minute to make it 1-1 and we were comfortable in the game.

“If you get your game plan spot on and you get everyone pulling in the one direction then you can go up there and cause problems but everyone certainly needs to be at it.

“Dundee United will certainly come out of the traps flying at home, so we need to make sure that we’re at it right from minute one.”

The midfielder believes that the Ton didn’t do themselves any harm despite the 3-0 scoreline against the Saints, and hopes that it’s a sign of improvement under David Hopkin.

He said: “We did ourselves justice against St Johnstone. 

“I know Midge [Chris Millar] spoke to a lot of St Johnstone fans after the game and they said that they thought there wasn’t a lot in the game and that the scoreline flattered them.

“I find it a bit hard to disagree with that in all honesty.

“We held our own against them, obviously they were just coming back off a break which maybe made them have a bit of ring rust, but we carved them open on numerous occasions and they’re always a stubborn team to play against.”