St Johnstone missed a chance to put their play-off with Inverness Caledonian Thistle to bed, Callum Davidson admitted.
But lifting his players after they were pegged back from 2-0 up and in cruise control to 2-2 and their place in the Premiership being thrown into real doubt won’t be a problem.
And Davidson, who revealed one of his goalscorers, Melker Hallberg, had to be taken off because he was ill before the game, was left frustrated that the officials missed an offside in the build-up to Caley Thistle’s first goal.
“For 60 minutes I thought we were good,” he said.
“We should have taken the tie away from Inverness but in football you get punished when you don’t take your chances.
“Whether that’s a refereeing decision or a fantastic free-kick.
“I felt he was two yards offside and there was also a head knock.
“The rules are if there are two players down with a head knock you stop the game and then he was offside. It was a double-whammy.
“But there’s nothing we can do about it now.
“Their lad scored a fantastic free-kick but they’ve had two shots on target. It was just one of those games.
‘You have to take it on the chin but if we play like we did for the first 60 minutes back home we will be confident we can get the result.
Momentum-changer
Asked what the momentum-changer was in the game, Davidson said: “Their goal.
“It’s hard to take because we’ve had some shockers this year.
“But there’s nothing we can do about it. Did I speak to Bobby (Madden)? I’ve stopped doing it.
“We lost a bit of impetus and allowed Inverness back in the game.
“But that’s football. We move on and we make sure we perform on Monday.
“We have to dust ourselves down pretty quick.
𝐒𝐓 𝐉𝐎𝐇𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐎 𝟐-𝟎 𝐔𝐏!
Melker Hallberg bundles the ball into the net to extend their lead. pic.twitter.com/oRWtSV1Ous
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) May 20, 2022
“We need to look at what we can do better and assess the boys and how they are.
“Melker was not well but he played anyway. Hopefully he will be OK for Monday.
Davidson added: “I’ve been in football long enough to know things can change quickly but when you’ve four or five chances when we were basically two v two, we have to do better and put the game to bed and kill the tie.
“We didn’t but it was only a draw. We are still in the game. We are all square going into a home tie.”
