St Johnstone manager Craig Levein insisted he isn’t more fearful of his team going into the play-offs after their defeat to Hibs than he was before it.
The Perth boss accepted that Saints “got away with one” given Ross County are still a point beneath them in the Premiership table having lost at Livingston.
And he maintains faith in his own squad that they can regain some form following their own loss at McDiarmid Park that featured “mistake after mistake after mistake”.
Asked if he was worried about the performances he’ll get from his side in the last four matches of the league season, Levein answered: “No.
“We’ve had other performances like that and they have come back and performed really well for two or three games before maybe throwing another one in.
“It is the inconsistency that is the nub of it.
“I don’t know if we are going to turn up and perform at a good level, which we have done on a number of occasions, or whether we will turn up and make poor decisions and execute things poorly.”
Poor passing
Not for the first time, Levein lamented Saints’ inability to retain possession.
“Hibs scored a great goal (a sixth minute Emiliano Marcondes free-kick) but our decision-making and our execution of passes was really, really poor,” he said.
“We had a situation where we’d have two or three passes, give it away, have to run back the whole length of the pitch to recover it and then do the same thing again and again and again.
“It was better in the second half but we gave ourselves a mountain to climb.
“The thing that irritates me the most is people not doing a shift and working. But they did plenty of running – because they continually gave the ball away.
“If we make a couple of mistakes, that leads to other mistakes.
“We don’t seem to be able to reverse out of the situation, calm things down and pull ourselves together.
“Other than Adama Sibideh’s chance (when he was through on goal three minutes after Hibs took the lead) we didn’t do a lot.
“So it’s difficult to get the confidence back into the players when it’s mistake after mistake after mistake.”
No change in the play-off picture
Has Levein got enough in the dressing room to keep Saints in the top-flight?
“The evidence suggests to me that we have,” he said.
“We had one or two games where I was quite critical of the effort.
“That wasn’t a problem here but it’s a loss so that is a dent in the confidence.
“We will just need to do better next week.
“Nothing’s changed in the table, has it?
“In some regards we got away with one.”
Sidibeh was taken off just before half-time, with the severity of his injury yet to be determined.
“Adama has a boot on his ankle,” said Levein.
“I think he rolled it and when they put the boot on, there is some degree of discomfort or pain. We will see.”
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