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St Johnstone boss Craig Levein refuses to use rustiness as an excuse after ‘tough watch’ in Airdrie

Saints are out of the Scottish Cup following their 1-0 defeat to the Diamonds.

An exasperated Craig Levein.
An exasperated Craig Levein. Image: PPA.

St Johnstone manager Craig Levein was baffled by his team’s woeful display against Airdrie that saw the Perth side knocked out of the Scottish Cup by their lower league opponents.

And he refused to use rustiness built up by a three-and-a-half week lay-off as an excuse for their meek exit from the competition.

“It’s easy to say that isn’t it,” said Levein regarding Saints suffering from lack of match sharpness after the mid-season break.

“I just think we gave the ball away and allowed it to affect our confidence.

“We had to run back to defend our goal and we never really got to a situation where we were playing football in Airdrie’s half and making them run.

“That was where we wanted to be but we weren’t there. It was a tough watch.”

Finding out why

Levein hasn’t had call to reflect on as poor a performance as this one since he took over from Steven MacLean – not one that lasted for the duration of a whole match, that’s for sure.

“Firstly, I have to say that Airdrie deserved to win,” he added. “They were really good.

“But I’ve got to look at why they looked really good.

“I’m not taking anything away from them but I thought we were really poor.

“I liken it slightly to the Kilmarnock match where for the first 20 minutes we were terrible and I didn’t know where it came from.

“But we managed to fix that, had a few good things, got back on track and finished that game strongly.

“Here, we just never fixed it at any point. We continually gave the ball away all over the field.

“Yet we have good players who have proven they can keep the ball, pass it and build up the play to give us chances to score.

“We weren’t under an awful lot of pressure when we gave it away, which is baffling for me.

“We have to look at the footage, work out what went wrong and get on the training ground.

“We only have a couple of days before Aberdeen to get ourselves back where we were.”

Kimpioka’s promise

Benji Kimpioka made his debut in the 1-0 defeat to the Diamonds and Levein saw enough to suggest the Swedish forward is going to be an asset for Saints in the second half of the season.

“Benji ran the channels really well,” he said. “That willingness was useful.

“We’ve got to give him time to settle and feel some confidence.

“There were two or three occasions where he was through and the goalkeeper took a pretty good starting position to get there before him.”

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