There is barely any part of a game of football left that hasn’t been given some sort of official-sounding title or tag.
We live in a time when some people would have you believe that ‘expected goals’ actually matter as much as the real thing.
And no doubt as we speak there are agents updating their clients’ ‘second assists’ numbers in readiness for January CVs being cast far and wide.
There are a few facets of the sport, however, that will forever fall through the fingers of the data analysists and the statisticians and remain a blissful inexact science.
Chief among them is the ‘bad’ or, if you prefer, the ‘soft’ goal.
It works a bit like this.
Factor in how good one team is, how good the opposition is and how hard the latter has had to work to get past the former. Then, if you’re not one of those types who would rather blame Peter Reid and Terry Butcher than credit Diego Maradona, you may decide to come to the conclusion that, yes, that was indeed a bad and/or soft goal to concede.
For St Johnstone, let’s be generous and give the benefit of the doubt for St Mirren’s second on Saturday which was a well-crafted move before the cross to the back post. And the same for Celtic’s equaliser a couple of weeks ago which can be put down as a bit of a lucky header.
Those two aside, there have been five goals against in the Perth team’s recent winless run that can unequivocally be dropped into the ‘they shouldn’t be letting those in’ category.
And that is a worry.
The two Livingston goals, Dunfermline’s in midweek and the first and third in Paisley were all eight and above out of 10 on the badgoalometer.
And apart from Livi’s first – which, from a Saints perspective, was born of ball-watching – they have all been scored as a result of crosses not being dealt with.
On Saturday for St Mirren’s first goal Jason Kerr got a weak head to an in-swinger and then those around him were slow to react. And for their winner, Danny McNamara allowed Jon Obika a free run at the back post.
It’s a theme of the season that has never really gone away – even during that history-making unbeaten run – but we have probably reached a point of peak 2020/2021 defensive sloppiness.
There needs to be a flattening of the curve.
And, with getting away from the bottom of the table now starting to become the priority again, there needs to be a flattening of the curve.
“The manager has told us it’s something we have to take a look at,” said Stevie May.
“After we’ve defended well for so long, to lose goals in that fashion isn’t good.”
May makes an important point with the defending well for so long bit – and it speaks to the fact that these defenders do have it in them to stay switched-on and use their heads and bodies to prevent goals.
To a man, they were excellent for more than half-an-hour while a player light at the weekend. When we reached 80 minutes it truly did feel that St Mirren had run out of ideas and the points would be the secured by Callum Davidson’s men.
It all adds to the frustration, of course, and the feeling that so many of Saints’ defeats and draws have been self-inflicted.
As a rule of thumb, they have had to work far harder for their goals this season than opponents have had to against them. Only at Hamilton have they scored a goal from a corner or a free-kick in the league.
“It’s tough to take when you hold out for that long,” said May, whose penalty took him to double figures for the season.
“Considering we only had 10 men we restricted them to very few chances so to lose those two late goals was very disappointing.
“We were playing well and countering when we got the opportunity.
“We scored first and, although we weren’t happy with the goal we conceded to make it 1-1, we’ve gone in at half-time ahead.
“The red card has obviously made things a lot harder for us.”
He added: “In this league you can fly up the league with a few wins and that is even more the case than usual this season. You can be in top six contention in no time.
“We need to get back to what we’re doing before and cut out those mistakes.
“There have been a lot of games in which we’ve felt we should have taken more than we’ve got. It’s down to us to change that.”
Nobody would have felt the pain of the St Mirren equaliser, and then winner, more acutely than captain Kerr.
There will be others this season who have seen, and will see, yellow not red for a tackle like his on Ilkay Durmus barely a minute after Scott Tanser had put Saints 2-1 up. But the utter folly of flying into that sort of challenge, at that time, at that part of the pitch, in front of that referee (Steven McLean) was beyond debate.
“He’s obviously disappointed,” said May.
“He’s the captain and he knows he’s got to do better than that.
“It’s one of them. I didn’t get a clear look at it but it was a rash challenge.
“I don’t think there will be too many complaints. I think it’s a silly one and it made it harder for us but everyone makes mistakes.”
It won’t be with Kerr in the team, but maybe the prospect of runaway champions-elect Rangers coming to town on Wednesday will sharpen the focus for a match in which the type of errors Saints have been making at the back of late will be ruthlessly punished.
