Alan Mannus has warned that St Johnstone must start taking their chances or risk a repeat of their painful Partick experience.
Saints were dumped out of the Betfred Cup by Thistle on Tuesday night, with the Jags firing three goals past keeper Mannus without reply at McDiarmid Park.
They return to league business on Saturday with a home match against Motherwell and Mannus acknowledged they have to take some of the many opportunities they have been creating or they could be punished again.
He said: “It was a disappointing performance and a disappointing result.
“I thought over the game they were better than us and the scoreline obviously reflected that as well.
“In saying that, I thought they only had one good chance before their first goal.
“It was a penalty but goals change games and that changed it quite a bit.
“We had chances after that but they scored a really good goal and we then had to come back from 2-0 down and it’s hard to do that.
“Over the course of the whole game, we probably weren’t good enough and they were a little bit better on the ball.
“We’re not going to get carried away because it is still very early on in the season but, as regards chances, I can only speak about the two games I was involved in.
“There have been seasons over the last few years when we have scored lots of goals and seasons when we haven’t scored many.
“It is early but we do have to change things in terms of taking those chances.
“We have to learn our lessons from the cup defeat.
“It wasn’t good enough as a team so we will have to be ready for Saturday so that it’s not the same sort of result.”
