St Johnstone need to “own” their poor performance against Hibs, according to boss, Simo Valakari.
But the Perth head coach has backed his players to show their error-strewn 3-0 defeat in Edinburgh wasn’t a sign of things to come in the Premiership run-in.
Saints shot themselves in the foot for both their opponents’ first half goals that effectively settled this match.
And Valakari held his hands up in front of the travelling fans at full-time.
“I understand their frustrations because they have hopes and expectations as they should,” he said.
“And the situation where we are, we need to come to these places and win games.
“It’s right you can be angry, right you can be disappointed, right you can be frustrated, but we need to stay calm.
“We need to show our great fans that we can bounce back from this. And we need to bounce back quickly.
“I take responsibility. We need to own this performance, and we don’t have another option.
“If we start feeling sorry for ourselves, if we start feeling frustrated, disappointed, angry, excuses, then it’s over, it’s a finito.
“I know my players, they will shake this. They feel it, they hurt, of course, because they are good boys.
“We need to go again.”
Hibs manager David Gray described the match as a “complete performance” from his team.
Valakari acknowledged Saints’ failings on the day.
No complaints
“We didn’t play well enough to get anything out of the match,” he said.
“Of course, we played against very good opponents, and they played well. But at the same time, we need to own this performance, learn from it quickly and move on.
“We have been in good form, but I’ve said many, many times, I don’t believe winning streak, losing streak. Every match is a unique opportunity.
“And today, we didn’t deserve anything.
“Before the first goal, we defended well, we won the ball, we had a chance to go for a transition.
“But that moment our players, for whatever reason, they made a wrong decision to ask the ball on their feet, just to keep the position.
“It was a moment to go behind them.
“I think we won the ball back and then won the ball again. There were many things we should have done. We should have done much, much better.
“Second goal, no complaints, I take responsibility. Right choice from our goalkeeper to play Sprangler there and right body position by Sprangler to take the touch out of this pressing player.
“They just nicked the ball and it was 2-0.”
Nothing up front
Saints offered very little in attack.
Valakari put that down to a lack of quality and poor decision-making.
“A good example of what happened in the second half was, they press us, we play through them, we get the chance to cross the ball, we cross it, we get the corner,” he said.
“Momentum is coming our way, we get the corner, we kick the corner, the ball starts bounding, we go and foul.
“Momentum gone, they can breathe.
“Or, when we play through them, we have players on the last line, simple pass, we do it, our player offside, momentum gone.
“All those little things, it’s difficult to notice, maybe in a big picture, but when we don’t do those little things right, it feels that there is no threat.
“We didn’t get this final moment to put the threat, or put enough pressure, because we didn’t do these things before that well enough.
“If you don’t do them right, then you’re just hoping and praying that things are happening, but in football, most of the games, it doesn’t work that way.”
Junior Hoilett scored the opener on 18 minutes.
It was an exquisite, curled shot on the angle that gave Andy Fisher no chance, but the ball shouldn’t have got to him in the first place.
The second came just before the half-hour mark.
Seconds after Mykola Kuharevich missed a sitter from inside the six-yard box, Hibs quickly won the ball back in the Saints defensive third and Martin Boyle showed his team-mate the meaning of the word clinical with his low finish into the far corner.
It took until the last seconds of the contest for Hibs to get their third, when Kieron Bowie was tripped in the box by Daniels Balodis and then the substitute sent Fisher the wrong way from the penalty spot.
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