St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari feels his team have been competitive in their first meeting with all of their Premiership opponents but he will continue treating every game as a major challenge.

The Championship winners sit in eighth place with 13 points from their opening 11 matches.

Valakari said: "There's enough games played, we need to respect the table. But I can say every game we have competed, even Ibrox, it was 4-0 but for 60 minutes we competed and pushed the opponent. But 11 games played, we need to respect the table."

The Finn refused to consider talking about a top-six push prior to Saturday's visit to Kilmarnock.

"I did not say anything last year, I did not say anything at the start of this season, and I'm not saying anything now," he said.

"Our only concern, our only focus, is this next game. Because if we start calculating, these next games we need to get this many points... it's not our job.

"It's the media, the fans, they can speculate, they can play football manager, dreaming of how things will go. Our only focus is the next game and how we can be the best version of ourselves."

Killie dropped to the bottom of the table in midweek and Valakari expects them to be fired up.

"I said it many times, every manager says, the margins are so small," said the former Motherwell midfielder, whose team scored a stoppage-time equaliser against the Steelmen on Wednesday.

"People talked about Motherwell coming here with six losses but you look at their team, how good they are, and losing seven games in a row is almost impossible.

"And it's the same with Kilmarnock, they have very good players. They are dangerous going forward."