Craig Levein hands St Johnstone stars ‘clean slate’

Craig Levein has recently seen St Johnstone at their best.

And he has also heard his predecessor deliver a brutal verdict on them at their worst not long before it.

As a new era begins at McDiarmid Park, though, it will be what happens from now on that will inform the Saints manager’s decision-making.

“I try not to take someone else’s word,” said Levein, who was a Main Stand spectator for the Perth side’s first league win of the season against Kilmarnock last week, which followed a 4-0 “chucked it” defeat in Paisley.

“I do think Macca was a bit unfortunate.

“The results weren’t there but it wasn’t like they were getting hammered.

“The only really disappointing one was at St Mirren.

“I watched some of those and was thinking: ‘It’s little things’.

“Then Chris Kane comes back, Nicky Clark comes back and all of a sudden you’ve got more potency in the front line, which is going to help.

Pinpoint delivery from Graham Carey 🤩
Superb finish from Nicky Clark 🔥#SJFC | @nickyclark91 pic.twitter.com/sfbSxDaQ9k

— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) November 2, 2023

“The idea is to give everybody a clean slate and they all start with a chance of playing.

“I saw St Johnstone in pre-season at East Fife and they weren’t great. To compare that to the performance against Kilmarnock I was like: ‘Woah’.

“I came up because I thought Max (Kucheriavyi) was playing. I was pleasantly surprised.

“I knew the experience was here.

“I didn’t realise the energy that the team had would be as impressive as it was.

“I came to the game the other night and the atmosphere before in the home support wasn’t great. But afterwards, everybody was happy.

“That then creates an environment where supporters are coming to the game with a smile on their face and they’re supporting the team. The players are feeling good about themselves.

“We have some really good young players here. We need to try and improve them as quickly as we can, which will enable the team to get better.”

‘Weird’ league

Levein’s team face Motherwell on Tuesday night.

He believes the up and down form of Saints’ opponents is emblematic of the unpredictable nature of the Premiership thus far.

“This season has been as weird as anything,” said the former Dundee United and Hearts boss. “They were flying, now they’ve dipped.

“You could throw a few teams into that. Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee – they’ve all had this kind of season.

“Apart from St Mirren – who you have to give credit to for what they’ve done – no one else has really had continual improvement through this season.

“Everyone else seems to be a wee bit uncertain about how their teams are going to perform.

“We will give Motherwell and Stuart (Kettlewell) a huge amount of respect. The challenge for us is to try and replicate the performance of last midweek.

“Then I’ll take whatever result if we can do that.”