St Johnstone’s gut-wrenching defeat to St Mirren left Simo Valakari lower than he’s ever been in his 30-plus years in football.
And the Perth boss admitted that the late collapse was a case of old shortcomings in his team resurfacing.
Valakari included his own decision not to make any second half substitutions in the post-match debrief into a 2-1 weekend lead turning into a 3-2 defeat.
He also expanded on the fact that at the core of his work since taking over from Craig Levein has been finding a way to maximise the assets in his squad and mask the deficiencies.
“I have to be honest,” said Valakari. “I’ve never felt this bad after a football match.
“Not as a player and not as a coach.
“And I have been involved in a lot of games and a lot of bad defeats.
“I know how hard it is to get a win in this league, even more so a comeback win.
“We threw it away.
“When I say ‘we’, I was a very big part of that – by my actions, or not doing any actions!
“Nothing has changed since the first day I came in.
“I see a very talented group of players with potential. We have a lot of strengths in our team.
“But when I say ‘nothing has changed’, I mean we have been trying to hide our weaknesses because the weaknesses are still a very big part of our team.
“In some moments we have been able to hide our weaknesses and play to our strengths.
“But in this match, those weaknesses very much came back to haunt us.
“We need to get our strengths even better so we can hold it completely for 90 minutes and work on our weaknesses so they don’t come back to haunt us again.”
Three strikers explanation
Reflecting on his bold team selection, which backfired in the first half, Valakari explained: “I made a decision to start with three strikers – and Nicky (Clark) – because Sven (Sprangler) was not there and we needed to do something differently.
“St Mirren are a very physical team and I knew they would press us strongly.
“So the plan was for our three strikers to hold their back five and give more freedom and overloads for our building up phases.
“But it was so tempting for the players to see our three strikers and get the ball to them as quickly as possible.
“That was the worst thing we could do because we ended up playing a style of game that doesn’t allow us to compete.
“In the second half we got more players into midfield – when we had possession, Drey (Wright) moved inside to be an inverted full-back, which gave us an outlet and helped get us the second goal.
“Both goals were great examples of how we can do things.”
No subs
Three points slipped through Saints’ fingers in a dramatic finale to the Premiership contest.
Valakari admitted that he was seriously considering a defensive-minded substitution to protect their lead as the minutes ticked away but stressed that wouldn’t necessarily have guaranteed victory.
The Finn said: “At 2-1, of course, when you look back now, should I have made some changes? Yes.
“I had sent Kyle Cameron to warm-up and was thinking about going to a back three.
“But I was also thinking that I have been asking my players to be brave. What message would I be sending on to the field to put another defender on?
“That was my thought process.
“It’s easy now to say that putting an extra defender or midfielder on, instead of a striker, would have been the right choice.
“This game was a good example of showing that just because we had four attackers on the pitch, it didn’t mean we were better going forward.
“So it didn’t automatically mean that if we put another defender or midfielder on we would have been better at the back.
“It’s about how you deal with moments.
“We are not afraid of mistakes. We will own our mistakes, myself included, and we will learn.”
Valakari added: “The third goal can happen – we lost all composure.
“Jason Holt puts his heart and soul into every game for this club.
“When he’s gone to block the shot he has lost his clear way of thinking and just wanted to stop it in anyway he could. Hands were up and everything, instead of having calmness.
“It’s a very thin line. We want to be brave and not be passive.
“We’re not quite there yet and we paid a huge price on Saturday.”
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