Craig Levein backed keeper Dimitar Mitov over the blunder that cost St Johnstone the opening goal in their loss to Dundee.
Mitov – a star performer for Saints this season – raced off his line only to head an attempted clearance straight to Dee striker Amadou Bakayoko.
Lyall Cameron scored into an empty net to set Dundee on the road to victory in Perth.
But Craig Levein refused to lay into his stopper, insisting the Bulgarian internationalist has been amongst his best players since taking charge at McDiarmid Park.
He said: “That’s our best defensive display for a while. Dimi [Mitov] hardly had anything to do.
“We made two mistakes and got punished for them both which is a bit harsh. But when you’re in this position it can happen.
“The answer is to keep plugging away. If we play like that every week we’ll be fine.
“I thought our defending was fantastic. Dundee have a real threat up front and runners from midfield and we managed to quash that then they’ve scored.
“Dimi has been fantastic; arguably our best player since I’ve been here, so I won’t criticise him.
“He made a mistake that cost us a goal, which is highly unusual, then Dundee’s next shot on target is probably the second goal, but s**t happens as they say.”
Cameron’s opener was cancelled out by a spectacular Adama Sidibeh overhead kick as Saints went on the front foot in the second half.
Bakayoko restored Dundee’s lead with 10 minutes to go, but it looked like Saints were set for a late equaliser when visiting keeper Jon McCracken carried the ball over his own line under pressure from Ryan McGowan and Aaron Donnelly.
Referee Iain Snedden awarded the Dee a free-kick, but was called to check his decision by VAR official Greg Aitken.
Snedden stuck with his on-field call, assuring victory for Dundee.
Levein insisted he had not looked fully enough at the incident to offer an opinion, but the Saints boss questioned why a first half incident between McCracken and Sidibeh, when the Dundee keeper appeared to take the Perth attacker out with a raised knee in the box, wasn’t reviewed.
On the incident late on, he said: “I haven’t had enough time to look properly.
“It was one of those days for us. I don’t know what to say.
“Most times when the ref comes to look at the screen there’s an alteration in the result. I’ll have more chance to look later on.”
Asked whether he asked the referee for an explanation, he said: “No. I don’t like going to ask because I’ll say something I’ll regret.
“In the first half we should have had a penalty I thought. Their goalie brought down Adama, but for it not to be looked at puzzles me.
“The goalie took the ball. They protect themselves by raising their knee but he pushed his knee out to the right and caught Adama on the thigh and they haven’t looked at it.
“That, I’d like an answer to. But I’m not sure if the goal should have stood or not, I’ve not looked at it closely.”
He added: “My biggest frustration is playing well and losing. I hate it. That’s the worst combination of all but we’ll try and extract the good bits and replicate it next week
“We should have been in here celebrating Adama’s first goal.
“It’s hard to criticise a defence that’s had a good performance but slipped up individually twice.
“There’s no point laying in to the boys, they knocked their pan in. It wasn’t to be and we take it on the chin.”
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