Craig Levein: Why I won’t be losing the head with St Johnstone players

St Johnstone may be back in the losing habit but Craig Levein won’t be losing the head.

The Perth boss is well aware that things went badly wrong for his team after they conceded an early opening goal to Hibs last weekend.

Errors became contagious.

Levein believes that the “fragility” Saints have shown too frequently isn’t exclusive to them, though.

And shouting in the dressing room or on the training ground, which might have been the case earlier in his management career, isn’t the best way to address it.

“The only time I raise my voice is when I don’t think we have been working hard enough,” said Levein.

“There’s no point in me shouting at someone who has taken a bad touch or has made a mistake.

“That’s a waste of time and only makes it worse.

“All of us down at the bottom end of the table have a bit of fragility about us. That’s the nature of it when you have been losing games.

“Right now, it’s about keeping the language simple and the players knowing the only time I’m going to lose my s**t is if we don’t put the effort in and roll the sleeves up.

“I don’t have an issue with that in the main.

“There have only been one or two times I don’t think we’ve been at it on that front.

“The St Mirren game is the one that springs to mind. That one annoyed me and the players themselves understood they had to have a go in the next game.

“That was against Aberdeen the last time we played them.

“So we have bounced back from bad performances well a few times this season and that’s the challenge for us again this weekend.”

Training shortened

Meanwhile, Levein has decided to take a slightly different approach to their working week.

“We’ve shortened the training and livened it up a bit in the last few days,” he said.

“Rather than being too much about tactics and going too much in-depth about things we’ve come back off that a bit.

“We’ve wanted it to be a bit more lively, shorter and sharper with what we’re doing.”

Pittodrie presents the next opportunity for Saints to show there will be ups mixed in with the downs as the season draws to a close.

“We are where we are in the league because of a lack of consistency,” said Levein. “But we’ve shown we can win games.

“We’ve gone to Aberdeen and Hibs in recent months to do that.

“It’s a crazy league – Ross County beat Rangers then lose to Livingston.

“It’s a very competitive and unpredictable league a lot of the time.

“I’d expect the same things to happen between now and the end of the season – for us and for the other teams.

“We will go up there and have a go, see if we can click like we did there the last time.”