St Johnstone playmaker Graham Carey admitted that playing on a bare McDiarmid Park pitch became a psychological issue as much as a technical one.
And it’s no coincidence that their home form has picked up now that the grass is growing again.
Asked if the standard of the Perth surface, on which Saints hadn’t won a game since November until Saturday’s 1-0 victory against Dundee United, has got into the Saints players’ heads, Carey said: “I think so.
“We wanted to play good football but we just couldn’t. It wasn’t something we could control.
“You could see the difference between our home and away results.
“Hopefully we can take advantage of the pitch improving.
Deserved win. Carey the best player on the pitch. Montgomery not far behind, but no failures really, generally Saints vastly improved. One win from security now.
— Bryan Wallace 🏴 🇻🇦 (@vimwallace) May 6, 2023
“It’s got a lot better and that has definitely helped us.
“Being able to play some football in such an important game was good.
“It was always going to be scrappy in parts but there was some good football in there as well.
“The home win was long overdue.
“I thought we played well, attacked as a team and defended as a team.
“We showed how much we wanted that win.”
Higher tempo
Carey believes the Steven MacLean bounce has been built on the training ground.
“We’ve been working on playing at a higher tempo with and without the ball,” said the Irishman. “Playing on the front foot.
“Training has been intense.
“It’s not easy because we’ve been playing for nine or 10 months and a lot of boys are obviously going to be tired.
“The last manager laid a lot of good foundations for the team and the current manager is building on that.
“Maybe there’s a psychological thing when there’s a change.
“The stats have shown that we’ve been running and sprinting a bit more. We should have been doing that all season but for some reason we haven’t been.
“We’re definitely pressing teams higher up the pitch and forcing mistakes.
“I think that suits us a bit better.
“Each manager has his own tactics.
“A lot of the players, especially the attacking ones, are enjoying the way we’re playing. Having an extra attacker on the pitch is helping us.
“He (MacLean) is a bit more vocal which is something we’ve maybe reacted well to.
“But, like I say, the previous manager put down great foundations.”
Job not done yet
There are now pretty solid foundations to finish off the survival job as well – a six-point gap on Ross County and a five-point one on United and Kilmarnock.
Complacency won’t be creeping in, though.
“Not at all,” said Carey.
“It will still probably go down to the last couple of games.
“We knew the first game after the split would be very important.
“This has given us a platform – a clean sheet and a home win.
“I thought we were excellent today, but it was only one win. We will now be looking toward Motherwell and that starts tomorrow when the players are in for recovery.”#SaintsTV spoke to Steven MacLean after our 1-0 win over Dundee United this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/MUmyMk76Qw
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) May 6, 2023
“We’ll be looking to get another one next week.
“We’re not thinking that we’re out of it, that’s for sure.
“Next week now becomes the biggest game of the season.
“It’s justified that people were talking about us as a team who was heading in the wrong direction because our form hasn’t been good enough.
“But we’ve improved a lot in the last couple of games, which will give us confidence.”
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