Dundee United boss Jim Goodwin says St Mirren's current League Cup-winning hangover is reminiscent of when he captained the Buddies to glory in the same competition 13 year ago.
On Saturday United host Stephen Robinson's side, who have won only one of their seven league matches since defeating Celtic in the final last month.
Goodwin was captain of the Paisley side the previous time they lifted the cup before failing to win any of their following seven top-flight matches.
"I think it's difficult after the highs of winning the cup then to refocus and get back on to the league programme. I've seen that numerous times," said Goodwin.
"It actually happened to my own team back in 2013. We really struggled to get any momentum in the league after the cup final.
"Stephen Robinson has had lots of injuries to key players as well to contend with, but they've still got a very good, strong squad available to them. We will certainly be preparing for a very difficult fixture.
"They gave us a really difficult game in Paisley last time out and deserved to win the game and we need to make sure we don't have a similar type of performance on Saturday because we can't afford to be on the wrong end of the result."
United are five points off sixth-placed Falkirk after winning just two of their past 13 league games.
"We have to put a run of wins together, something that we haven't been able to do up to now," added Goodwin.
"We're going into that last block of 11 games now prior to the split and we have to start picking up maximum points on a consistent basis."
