St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson is in no doubt that his team are now fighting for their Premiership lives again.
The Perth side’s 2-0 defeat to Ross County leaves them just five points clear of their opponents, who currently occupy the play-off position.
They haven’t won in five games and last tasted victory at McDiarmid Park at the start of November.
And the Saints boss admitted it’s “roll our sleeves up” time again, with just two matches left to go before the mid-season split.
Asked where the latest loss leaves his team, Davidson said: “Relegation battle. Simple as that. Definitely.
“I said that to the players in there.
“We weren’t happy with how we performed. We need to roll our sleeves up.
“Everybody in here has to roll their sleeves up and get on with it.
“It’s not what we wanted but you have to accept the situation that you’re in and deal with it.
“We’re still in a good position an we’ve still got points on the board. We still want those couple of wins to make sure that we’re safe.
“We need application and doing the basics well.
“We did it last year when we were in a much worse position. So that’s what I need. I need that attitude, that desire, that togetherness from everybody.
“We need everybody together.
“That’s why we are successful at St Johnstone so we need everyone to stay together and make sure that we’re fighting and we’re scrapping and we’re ready to go.”
Home form in their heads
On their winless run at McDiarmid reaching nine, Davidson said: “I don’t know if that got into our minds a bit because the home form has been mentioned quite a lot.
“We need to make sure we get that out of our mind very quickly.”
Saints shot themselves in the foot as far as both County goals were concerned, according to Davidson.
“In a scrappy first half we’ve conceded in the 45th minute from a goal-kick,” he said.
“I’m furious with how we defended it. It was one long kick, a flick-on and a goal.
“Then we set up our plans for the second half and lose a goal from a really poor bit of defending from a corner.
“It’s very difficult to win games from that.
“We tried to come and get back into it. We had chances and we had chances before it as well.
“But if you lose goals like that at certain times in games then you have no chance of winning football matches.
“If they stuck one in the corner and open us up with some great play then I would be still disappointed but not quite as angry as I am just now.
“We had a three v two at the back. One goes for it, two cover – it’s dead simple.
“It’s not rocket science when it comes to defending.”
Conversation