St Johnstone’s hopes of Premiership survival feel more realistic than they have for months.
Not only did Wednesday night’s victory over Ross County bring them to within three points of 11th in the table, it provided further evidence that they are now a team which plays well more often than it doesn’t.
This was as dominant a performance as Saints have produced in the league this season.
Don Cowie admitted County – a side who were in fantastic form, having only lost to Rangers and Celtic this calendar year, let’s not forget – were comprehensively defeated.
He had no complaints about the result and the same was certainly true for the home fans about the St Johnstone display.
Their team controlled the ball and territory and overwhelmed their opponents when it came to corner count and shots on goal.
There was also a refusal to accept that this would be another hard-luck story, that for the second time in four days, they had come up against a goalkeeper who was pulling off logic-defying saves.
Character, composure and quality were all on show.
Courier Sport picks out four talking points ahead of a weekend trip to Dens Park that will be Scotland’s game of the day.
Zach Mitchell
You could go through the team and identify several eight out of 10 performances from St Johnstone players.
Jason Holt justified his recall.
He was back to the perpetual motion, keep things ticking over, put yourself in the right place at the right time, central midfielder Saints need.
Stephen Duke-McKenna justified his first start.
Harrogate Town must be a good team to let this man out on loan. Not everything comes off but his crosses off both feet are, and will continue to be, a pivotal part of the new-look Perth side.
Sam Curtis made a big leap forward in terms of his distribution and Daniels Balodis is quietly improving game on game.
But one man stood above the rest.
Zach Mitchell, who only turned 20 last month, was tasked with replacing Saints’ best-performing centre-half, who has cruelly suffered a second career ACL injury, on the first occasion he had been picked in the starting line-up since arriving from Charlton Athletic on loan on deadline day.
Pick any aspect of central defensive play and Mitchell excelled in it.
Ronan Hale and Jordan White are at different ends of the striker skillset spectrum but neither troubled him.
Mitchell was vocal – more so than anybody else in the backline.
He read the game – the interception on the left side of the pitch that nearly resulted in Curtis scoring just before half-time was the perfect example of that.
And he was able to turn defence into attack, either with a quick right pass to the right man or by stepping into midfield.
It won’t be like this all the time.
A player as inexperienced as Mitchell will turn over possession on occasions, purely as a result of his positivity and the law of averages.
But it is such a potent weapon for a team to have that ball-playing intent in a centre-half.
Let’s see how the next few weeks go – and there’s recency bias at play when assessing Mitchell’s midweek contribution – but I’m struggling to think of a St Johnstone centre-back who has played better than this on his first Premiership start.
The goalkeeper
Jordan Amissah was Ross County’s best player – by a distance.
I actually think his save to deny Curtis was better than Craig Gordon’s.
Gordon made himself big but the ball hit him.
Amissah had to throw out a right arm, with a fraction of a second to do so.
Nobody could claim that Andy Fisher was St Johnstone’s best player.
He barely had anything to do at the other end.
But he made a decisive contribution to the victory.
The Nohan Kenna 18-yard strike in the 90th minute was the type of shot that had been getting past or through Josh Rae.
By saving, and holding it, Fisher showcased a level of technical solidity, authority and concentration that Saints need in a goalkeeper.
The manager
A result and performance always colours a team selection, of course.
But Simo Valakari’s XI for this game felt spot-on when it was revealed.
He struck the perfect balance of risk and control, recognising that although all hope would not have been lost in the event of a defeat or draw, this was an opportunity that, with games running out, probably needed to be seized.
Picking two strikers and a winger reflected that.
It also needed timely substitutions.
Graham Carey came on at just the right moment. He raised the tempo of the Saints attacks, culminating in the winner being scored a few minutes after his introduction.
And, it didn’t result in a second goal, but Carey’s Thiago Alcantara-esque pass for Duke-McKenna was a thing of footballing beauty all on its own.
It doesn’t always work, but Valakari is a proactive coach, who now has greater ammunition on the bench when he wants to alter the flow of a contest.
If there’s one statistic that encapsulates the fact that his in-game management is a big part of a St Johnstone match-day, it’s this one.
In his 21 games in charge, he has made 21 subs at half-time or before.
No Perth boss can come close to that.
High stakes at Dens
The last thing on the minds of Dundee fans in the build-up to Saturday’s match at Dens will be whether this fixture is a derby or not.
The hope that their team would serve up top-six, post-split football and a couple of trips to Europe in the summer recently turned into a fear of enduring the ordeal of a play-off.
Now the horror prospect of automatic relegation has become a realistic possibility.
Call it whatever you want, it’s a biggie at the weekend.
It isn’t a must win for Saints, however.
The two Wednesday night results have ensured that.
It’s a must not lose.
Keep the gap at three points and you keep the pot boiling.
From a St Johnstone perspective, this game will be all about sensing opportunity.
If they get the chance to exert control and push for the win, do it.
But if the Dundee who should have beaten Rangers and Celtic not that long ago turn up, recognise that a draw isn’t a calamitous result.
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