St Johnstone’s winless away run goes on.
A draw could – probably should – have been salvaged by Tony Gallacher but the first Saints victory on the road in nine league games never looked on the cards from the moment Kilmarnock raced into an early two-goal lead.
Courier Sport picks out four talking points from the 2-1 defeat at Rugby Park, with a trip to face bottom of the table, Livingston, up next on Wednesday night.
That start
No wonder Craig Levein was left bewildered by what he was watching.
Not only was it the poorest opening to a game in his time in charge, you could broaden that out to the whole Premiership season.
Saints were far too ponderous at home to Dundee and at Tynecastle but not to this degree.
Levein could spend the whole of Christmas Eve re-watching the first 20 minutes of this contest and still not get a definitive grip on the whys and hows.
He was right to credit Kilmarnock, though.
They overwhelmed Celtic recently but the fast start against Saints was being talked about in the Killie camp as their best spell of attacking football of the season.
Even so, Saints were unrecognisable.
They have been consistently good enough under Levein to come to the conclusion that a passive team that struggles to string a few passes together and perform the defensive basics is no longer the norm.
And they went on to prove that point when they got their act together.
Yes, Nicky Clark’s return was a big factor in the performance uplift but there was an across the board raising of standards.
When you’re in the bottom six, you rarely get away with Jekyll and Hyde displays like this.
With Livingston sure to be a pumped up team from the first whistle in midweek, Saints need to be ready to meet fire with fire.
That chance
Gallacher certainly couldn’t blame the surface.
It was a glorious chance to level the scores on 73 minutes whether you’re a defender, midfielder or attacker.
He tried to lift the ball over Will Dennis when any sort of side-foot contact would probably have done the job.
What shouldn’t be forgotten, however, is the move.
Matt Smith’s pass, Fran Franczak’s over-lapping run and cross and Gallacher’s surge beyond a flat-footed Killie defender were all top quality.
This was a template of a wing-back system working perfectly.
Levein will want to see more of it.
And, with Clark back in the team, it’s the type of service you would expect a natural finisher to thrive off.
Dead-ball threat
Saints are one of the smallest teams in the league but Clark turns them into one of the most dangerous from set-pieces.
His trademark near post run is a thing of simplistic beauty.
Defenders know what’s coming – Kilmarnock certainly should have because he scored after doing it the last time the teams met.
But it’s a short, sharp burst that is very hard to counter.
Add into the mix that Saints have a right-footer (Smith) and a left-footer (Graham Carey) equally adept at dropping the ball on the head of a moving target and there’s every reason to expect the Perth side’s dead-ball tally (which accounts for six of their last 10 goals) to keep rising.
Points target
At the start of Saints’ run of away fixtures that takes them into the mid-season break I’d have set par at four points and resounding success at six.
The key match was – and still is – the next one.
Beating Livingston and losing to Livingston, a 10-point-gap or a four-point gap is the difference between taking a giant stride towards banishing the prospect of automatic relegation and it becoming a realistic fear once more.
A draw isn’t as unpalatable for Levein as Martindale though, that’s for sure.
It will be an intriguing team selection.
“We can’t afford to start any game in that manner.”
Craig Levein spoke to #SaintsTV after our 2-1 defeat this afternoon.#SJFC pic.twitter.com/oQOMWYyQxO
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) December 23, 2023
Does Andy Considine come back in, with Gallacher dropping out and Luke Robinson pushed out to left wing-back?
Does Dan Phillips retain his starting place after his poorest performance in a while?
Clark will surely start but does he play alongside Chris Kane in a two-up-front formation that probably suits him best but sacrifices a midfielder?
Is taking Franczak out a bigger risk than keeping him in?
This is arguably Levein’s trickiest starting line-up choice yet.
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