He said: "Every game we've played bar the Celtic game, when we were down to 10 men for 75 minutes, has been extremely tight. Each game could have gone either way.

"We could easily have lost the Dundee United game and at the same time we could easily have won it with the goal we scored that was chalked off. The St Johnstone game was the exact same. We probably should have been two goals up at half-time and last weekend against Hibs it was a similar story.

"The players can take a great deal of confidence from knowing that in five of the six games we've played up to now we've been in every single one of them, and they've come down to some very small margins. I don't expect this Sunday to be any different."

While Goodwin believes the tide will turn in his team's favour, he is well aware that they need to start getting points on the board soon if they are to avoid becoming embroiled in a relegation battle.

He said: "I'm very confident results will soon start reflecting our performances. Of course we need to start turning these draws into victories. We're not in a crisis, or anything like that, but we're all well aware we need to start picking up wins to help us close the gap on the top half of the table which is where we want to be.

"I don't think we're a million miles away. We just need to carry a bit more luck, and I do believe that will change.

"We've had goals disallowed that shouldn't have been and we had a soft penalty against us last weekend. Things like that aren't going in our favour but I do believe we're going in the right direction.

"The last three games in particular I think we've shown signs of improvement. We're going into this one with a bit of confidence because we take a lot of positivity from the game against Hibs."