St Johnstone will go into the new year bottom of the Premiership.
And they will still be there after the first game of it.
Their 4-0 defeat to Celtic means that even a victory over Hibs on Thursday won’t be enough to take them above Hearts, who are three points better off than the Perth side with a far better goal difference.
Simo Valakari and his squad have a huge task on their hands to make 2025 a year that is remembered for a valiant escape from the drop rather than a year when a long, proud spell in the top tier of Scottish football comes to an end.
Courier Sport picks out three talking points from the Parkhead loss as thoughts turn to two crucial McDiarmid Park fixtures.
The formation and the performance
It was the first time Valakari has started with a back three and the change of system was hard to argue against.
As bleak as it may sound, making sure this wasn’t a truly ugly result, with all the psychological damage that brings, was the base goal.
Sights may have been raised had the score still been 0-0 or even 1-0 down with 15 minutes to go, but that didn’t prove to be the case.
“I thought from minute one to the 94th minute we were outstanding in the game,” said Brendan Rodgers.
If Celtic are at their best against St Johnstone then you can discount all possibility of a shock.
Even in those circumstances, though, Saints would be disappointed that they didn’t find a way to pass their way up the pitch on a few more occasions and force Kasper Schmeichel into making a save.
It would be a shock if Valakari sticks with the formation for the clash against Hibs – he and his team need a far more ambitious mindset. With the best will in the world, you rarely get that with three centre-backs on the pitch.
Fran Franczak
Valakari has shown himself to be a manager who isn’t reluctant to make a substitution (the ironic exception being the late defeat to St Mirren in which the team could probably have done with a couple).
So, it is puzzling that it took until the last game of the calendar year for Fran Franczak to play a part in a St Johnstone game under the Finn’s leadership.
Franczak’s absence hasn’t been the biggest story of Saints’ season so far but it is a curious little sub-plot.
Injuries were a factor for a while, however the youngster has been fit for a while.
Valakari views Franczak as a central midfielder but he got his starting chance on Sunday afternoon in the right wing-back role where he played most of his football under Craig Levein.
That he was one of Saints’ best players in the most daunting fixture of them all speaks to his quality and character.
That he lasted the full game without wilting speaks to his core fitness.
I’ve thought for a while that this team could do with Franczak’s energy and dynamism in bursts, maybe not from the start as a midfielder, but certainly when legs are getting weary later in games.
Valakari took the Polish youth international to the Saints fans to make sure he soaked up the applause he was rightly receiving after the full-time whistle, then talked-up his performance and importance to the long-term future of the club.
Franczak isn’t going to become a regular starter in his favoured position just yet, and he may still be sent out on loan towards the end of the January transfer window.
But we will surely see more of him in St Johnstone colours over the next few weeks.
Now or never
The pessimists (even the realists) among the fan base are drowning out the eternal optimists.
The form collapse of their own team has come at a time every other bottom six side has gained ground and the one most likely to be caught, Ross County, has opened up a five-point gap, thrashing Dundee and then scoring two injury-time goals against Hearts.
And we don’t even know yet whether Valakari will get the backing he needs to start righting the wrongs of a shambolic summer transfer window.
It’s a bleak outlook.
It’s also now or never time in terms of breaking this potentially season-defining form slump and, just as importantly, snapping supporters out of an acceptance that their club’s fate is sealed.
One win out of the next two home games, against Hibs and Dundee, is the absolute minimum required.
Anything less and Valakari’s admirable positivity will likely fall on deaf ears.
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