St Johnstone halted their run of defeats with a 10-man draw against Hibs.
And head coach, Simo Valakari, believes that even though the gap to 11th in the Premiership has grown to five points, the performance was one that can be the foundation of a 2025 Perth revival.
Jason Holt was sent off late in the first half, with Nicky Clark scoring from the penalty spot just before the break.
Dwight Gayle equalised for Hibs but, on this occasion, Saints held firm to secure a draw.
“It’s mixed emotions,” said Valakari.
“Yes, we wanted three points so to get only one point from a home match is a little bit disappointing.
“But in our situation, bottom of the league, everything goes against you.
“We were playing a team at the top of their form, with momentum.
“It was a silly tackle to get the red card and then people would have been thinking ‘this is the game gone for St Johnstone’.
“But actually, what I saw was a team grow together much stronger.
“For me, we handled most of the crosses very, very well.
“Then we conceded a goal.
“When that has happened recently the air has come out of us. Not this time. It was a strong, committed performance where the team grew together.
“We’ve got a point and there were a lot of good, honest performances.
“We need calms heads.
“Because we didn’t win, the gap has got bigger but sometimes you have to look behind the point. It was a testament to the spirit and desire in the team, which will take us out of this situation.”
Kirk injury and Cameron absence
Makenzie Kirk missed the match through injury, with Kyle Cameron left out of the squad.
The on-loan Notts County man may have played his last game for Saints, as Valakari confirmed he wasn’t injured.
“Makenzie has played a lot of football,” said the Finn. “He was feeling something that kept him out today.
“He’s telling me he’ll be ready for Sunday (against Dundee) but it will be touch and go.”
On Cameron’s absence, Valakari said: “He was not involved today.”
Saints have yet to sign anybody this window but Valakari has preached patience.
“I know that for outside people this might feel like a slow process because everyone knows we need signings,” he said.
“But we have a clear plan of how we want to work with the right steps to make us stronger and get the right players. That’s what we have started to do.
“It will be a good transfer window, I believe.
“Sometimes it might feel a bit slow to bring these players but it’s not always ‘boom, boom, here are the players’.”
Saints made a decent start to the game and came close to breaking the deadlock on 11 minutes.
Drey Wright popped a pass into Nicky Clark and the captain’s dummy fooled his marker, allowing Adama Sidibeh the chance to get a shot away. Unfortunately, the Gambian international dragged his low effort on the angle past the post.
Sidibeh had another shot a few minutes later. This time he kept it on target but would have been better advised lifting his head and attempting to pick out a team-mate.
At the other end, Junior Hoilett left Jack Sanders in his wake outside the box but the Saints centre-half redeemed himself by getting back into a position to clear a Chris Cadden shot off the line at the end of the move.
After that promising opening from the hosts, it was Hibs’ turn to enjoy a good spell.
Had Martin Boyle anticipated that Hoilett would get a touch to a Hyeokkyu Kwon cross, he would have scored rather than the ball bouncing off him into the arms of Josh Rae.
Saints were reduced to 10 men, four minutes before the break, after Holt’s challenge on Chris Cadden near the touchline was upgraded from a yellow following VAR intervention.
Had an opener for the visitors soon followed, nobody in the ground would have been surprised, but it was Valakari’s men who grabbed a half-time lead.
Sanders was impeded by Rocky Bushiri when Fran Franczak delivered a corner to the back post, the referee awarded a penalty and Clark scored from the spot.
Just before the hour mark, Boyle finished off a Nicky Cadden cross but it was disallowed for offside.
On 79 minutes Hibs got their equaliser, when Gayle reacted to a Nectarios Triantis header into the box and gave Rae no chance from close range.
Rae made a magnificent save with his feet to prevent Triantis from scoring himself and a Josh Campbell header scraped the bar but Saints held on for the point that a committed performance merited.
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