St Johnstone suffered a “cruel” and undeserved blow in their defeat to Livingston, according to Craig Levein.
But the Perth boss has no doubts that his team will pick themselves up off the floor for their clash with Ross County in midweek.
Saints had enough good chances to win the clash with David Martindale’s side at a canter.
But a combination of poor finishing, outstanding goalkeeping and slack defending meant that a much improved overall performance counted for nothing.
Levein, though, is confident that the West Lothian result won’t be a defining one and that Saints can leapfrog County into 10th by beating them at McDiarmid Park on Wednesday night.
“When things are going against you at times this is what happens,” he said.
“If we’d been four or five up at half-time it would have been a fair reflection.
“But we weren’t, we made a couple of mistakes in the second half and were punished.
“I don’t want to put it down to individuals missing chances or point the finger.
“There’s no point me caning people for making mistakes and missing chances because of the level of performance we put in.
“I have been searching for a really good performance for a while now and we got that today.
“Football is cruel sometimes and you don’t always get what you deserve.
“They worked really hard, played well and created chances. I’m not going to sit here blaming people for missing chances.
“What we will talk about is if we replicate that on Wednesday we’ll give ourselves a chance to win.”
Dealt with the pressure well
Levein, whose side took an early lead through Adama Sidibeh, added: “I feel for the players.
“They’re hurting and they’re gutted. But they’re together and that’s important.
“I don’t think it will be hard to lift them. They’re annoyed because of how much they put into the game.
“We just have to focus on the things we did well.
“We have been playing with this situation hanging over us for a while. The players came here today with pressure on and performed really well.
“Things didn’t go our way but it’s about rolling our sleeves up for Wednesday now.
“I don’t see there being any more pressure than there has been. It’s just the same.”
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