St Johnstone are into the Scottish Cup quarter-finals and the Perth club’s winning run in all competitions has reached a six-year high of four games.
And that streak may not be over yet.
The contest against Hamilton Accies played out as head coach, Simo Valakari, suspected it might.
Saints passed up a few glorious opportunities (three of them headers from point-blank range) and the visitors were always a live threat as a consequence.
At 0-0 in the second half, Andy Fisher had to do well to thwart a Hamilton counter-attack.
But perseverance and patience paid off for Valakari’s men, with Adama Sidibeh coming off the bench to settle the tie, just as the crowd were resigning themselves to 30 minutes of extra-time.
Courier Sport picks out four talking points from the contest.
The spell has been broken
Using the phrase “good fortune” in relation to St Johnstone beating Hamilton needs a bit of qualification.
They thoroughly deserved to win.
Saints dominated every meaningful metric to measure a football match and even if extra-time had been required, the flow of play was pointing to a home victory as the contrasting quality between the two sets of substitutes was beginning to make things one-sided.
And my first instinct that Graham Carey’s shot took a lucky deflection off Sidibeh was misjudged.
There was nothing lucky about it.
As Valakari observed, Sidibeh showcased instinctive striker-play.
However, there’s no doubt that there has been a change.
St Johnstone of pre and post-Christmas were a team with the world against them.
Everything that could go wrong was going wrong.
The second Motherwell game has altered that atmosphere.
A marginal offside call in their favour for Bozo Mikulic’s winner might just have broken a spell.
Since that point, there was refereeing (and VAR) benefit of the doubt that went their way when a penalty wasn’t awarded against Drey Wright against St Mirren.
Then Mikulic’s goal was aided by a scruffy assist and a scruffy deflection.
And on Saturday, even though Sidibeh’s header was deliberate, Carey certainly wasn’t trying to shoot in his direction.
No team goes deep in the Scottish Cup without a bit of good fortune and no team stays up after being nine points adrift without even more of it.
Long may the dark cloud stay away from McDiarmid Park.
Saints need Sidibeh
It really doesn’t matter if the match-winner meant to head the ball or not.
He has now scored for the first time in six months and 20 games.
The player certainly needed that goal and so did his team.
It’s hard to recall a forward whose desperation to find the back of the net was as evident in his body language as Sidibeh – not in a selfish, taking the huff type of way, just a yearning to have a burden lifted from his back.
All strikers have the potential to be streaky but that undoubtedly applies to the Gambian international.
He scored five in eight games last season, playing the largest individual role in keeping Saints in the Premiership.
Valakari will need his goals over the next few months.
All the evidence points to Uche Ikpeazu being absent for the whole campaign, while, despite the fact that Benji Kimpioka has been challenged by his manager to do his bit, it’s a leap of faith to expect him to return to the sort of form that caught the eye of other clubs and led him to a position that negotiating a Perth contract extension wasn’t an option he wished to contemplate.
That’s two games he hasn’t been in the match-day squad and three he hasn’t featured.
It’s too much to expect Makenzie Kirk to remain prolific – there will be days like this when he misses chances.
And Mikulic won’t keep scoring late winners.
Valakari needs someone to share the goal burden with Kirk.
Sidibeh might just be that man.
Three at the back
Valakari has never been wedded to a formation in his managerial career so don’t expect that to happen now.
In his short time at McDiarmid Park alone, he’s adopted several different set-ups.
A three-man central defence isn’t cast in stone, but you can imagine it getting a long run now.
A home game against a side near the bottom of the Championship may have tempted Valakari into going with a back four, but he stuck with the system that has served him well of late.
Sam Curtis is more a full-back than a wing-back and Drey Wright prefers his right foot to his left so there are potential issues out wide.
The fact that Curtis was replaced at half-time by Stephen Duke-McKenna inferred that Valakari had identified that service from the flanks was an area he wanted to see improvements in.
With Victor Griffith not having as big an impact in linking midfield to attack as previous matches, Kirk also felt a bit isolated at times.
Saints have regained the midfield strength that they enjoyed pre-slump.
They also look far more robust when teams seek to get at them down the sides of the centre-halves.
If they can get the attacking width bit sorted, they’ll be in a very good place.
The debutants
Just one game into the post-January transfer window phase of the season and all eight of Valakari’s new signings have got onto the pitch.
Six started this cup tie.
Zach Mitchell was only seen for a few stoppage time minutes, but there has been enough action to assess the strengths of the other seven.
Daniels Balodis, Jonathan Svedberg and Duke-McKenna were the three men in the spotlight on Saturday.
Balodis looks as if he will be every bit as effective as Mikulic.
He played on the left side of the back three and didn’t put a foot wrong.
Valakari gave him the full 90 minutes, which was a show of trust in the Latvian international’s fitness.
Had he been struggling on that front, we would have seen it when a ball was played over the top of him deep into the match.
But he comfortably won the foot race.
Central midfield demands more athleticism and Svedberg’s lay-off has been longer, not to mention the fact that he was in his bed for few days with illness recently.
So, it was no surprise he was substituted on 65 minutes.
What we saw of the Swede bodes well, though.
He was probably the best player on the ball in the first half and formed an effective partnership with Elliot Watt in front of the back-three.
Valakari has decisions to make about how to get the best out of those two and Sven Sprangler but the head coach won’t be complaining about that sort of challenge.
And last, but by no means least, Duke-McKenna passed a real character test.
It was tough for the Liverpudlian at the start of his debut – he lost his footing on a couple of occasions and didn’t control the ball as he would have wished.
But it was heartening to see him get at his full-back time and time again, going past him on several occasions. He can beat a man inside and out and cross off both feet.
A significant aspect of the second half game plan was to get the ball out to McKenna-Duke.
Had Carey’s redirected shot not produced the winner, something happening off the back of the on-loan winger’s trickery and growing confidence was looking the best bet.
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