St Johnstone are still bottom of the Premiership, still winless and still in a big hole.
Courier Sport identified three talking points from their latest league defeat – a 2-0 loss against Hibs.
A new signing excelled but old habits and tactics die hard.
Sprangler a class act
After all the bureaucratic hurdles Saints and Sven Sprangler have had to negotiate to get the Austrian midfielder on a football pitch in Scotland, you did fear that his debut might turn out to be a bit of an anti-climax.
It was nothing of the sort.
The flights, the delays and the hours of work put in behind the scenes will be time and money well spent.
Sprangler is exactly as billed – a central defensive midfield ‘destroyer’ who knows exactly what part he plays in a team and is diligent and highly effective in doing so.
He certainly didn’t lack general fitness and his in-game senses were far sharper than a man who hadn’t seen competitive action for months had any right to showcase.
He’s an expert in his position.
Sprangler was perpetually scanning over both shoulders, more so than anybody in blue and green on the pitch.
He put himself in the right positions, intercepted athletically and moved the ball on with a minimum of fuss.
Saints have had to deploy two men to perform the role of defensive protection at times in the past but, with Sprangler to call upon, Steven MacLean will have the luxury of only needing the one.
There was enough in Dan Phillips’ performance higher up the pitch to suggest he will prosper with greater freedom to roam.
Goodness knows how Sprangler has been allowed to drift out of the top-flight scene in his homeland.
Austria’s loss is MacLean’s gain.
With the jury still out on many of his 11 summer recruits, we can already put Sprangler down as one player he will have no cause to regret signing.
Not the answer
He’ll run and run, he’ll close down, he’ll absorb fouls and bounce back for more, he’ll chase lost causes but Stevie May as a lone striker doesn’t work as an attacking strategy.
It doesn’t play to his core strengths, it doesn’t get the team up the pitch and it’s time to move on from this option even as a plan B or C in the absence of Chris Kane and Nicky Clark.
St Johnstone gear change needed
The post-Dingwall world for St Johnstone has been more positive than the pre-Dingwall one.
The upward curve has been a shallow one but, in the main, they have generally played better.
You could take encouragement out of Celtic (very good), Dundee (not so good but a fighting finale) and Rangers (decent team shape).
Then in the Hibs contest, Saints had earned themselves a foothold in the contest – the volume on home fan discontent being turned up around the half-hour mark told the story of a game-plan working.
They were also enjoying a spell of territorial joy in the opening stages of the second half, with an equaliser likelier than a second home goal at that point.
Pointing out that the dreadful defending of balls into the box needs urgently addressed is an exercise in stating the obvious.
🟢 Nick Montgomery got his first win as Hibs boss after beating St Johnstone – who remain bottom of the table ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/F2MTpKpnTl
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) September 23, 2023
If Saints are going to win games anytime soon this simply has to stop.
But there also needs to be a collective gear change.
This isn’t one of those ‘rope a dope’ St Johnstone teams who can be relied upon to frustrate an opponent and then land a sucker-punch.
Plenty of the good ones down the years would have done just that against a Hibs side which was susceptible to that sort of approach if you could have taken them into the last 15 minutes on level terms.
Virtually every goal of the 10 Saints have conceded in the Premiership – let alone the League Cup ones – have been more down to their own failings and vulnerabilities than an overwhelming creative muscle of an opponent.
Livingston next weekend has to be the start of something bolder, something aggressive, something front-foot, something that has comprehensively broken with past habits and failings.
Something that speaks to the vision MacLean had in mind when he was shaping this squad.
Conversation