St Johnstone need to find their form again – and fast – to have a chance of survival, says Jason Holt

St Johnstone have set standards that Jason Holt believes, if sustained, would give them a fighting chance of staying in the Premiership.

The Perth midfielder knows they let them slip in the comprehensive weekend 3-0 defeat to Hibs.

And, with time running out to close the five and six-point gaps on the two teams they can realistically catch, it’s a form dip that will have to be a short one.

“Prior to this game our performance levels have been decent,” said Holt.

“I thought we started the game alright, but we fell away a bit and after we went two goals down, we struggled to get back into it.

“We huffed and puffed in the second half without troubling their goalkeeper.

“Overall, it was a really disappointing day.

“It’s hard to put your finger on where it went wrong.

“We just seemed a bit off it as a team. That’s a collective.

“Hibs are a team with momentum, playing with confidence and their fans are right behind them.

“So, it was always going to be difficult.

“But we had confidence going into it ourselves, which makes it disappointing that we didn’t play well.”

Passing their way out

The first half Hibs goals which defined this contest were both scored after Saints turned over possession in their own half.

Holt insisted, however, that tactics weren’t responsible for the errors.

“That’s the nature of the beast,” said the former Livingston man.

“Since the gaffer has come in, he’s given us a playing style and we’ve stuck to it.

“There will be mistakes – in a 90-minute game of football, every one of the players will make mistakes.

“Unfortunately, sometimes you get punished for them. That happened today.

“There will be no fingers pointed. It’s a team effort and we fell short as a team.

“I think there was maybe only one effort on their goal, which ultimately isn’t enough to win a game of football.

“We realise that we weren’t at our best.

“It wasn’t the standard of performance that we need to give ourselves a chance of staying in the league.”

Saints welcome champions-elect, Celtic, to McDiarmid Park on Sunday.

Given the Perth side’s predicament, no fixtures can be written off.

Celtic test

Holt said: “It doesn’t get any easier, but you still need belief that you’re going to get something from the game.

“We’ll try and make it as difficult as we can for Celtic.

“Then it will be a question of whether we can create chances. That’s the objective.

“We need to make sure we get back to the level we’ve been at.

“Fall below that and it’s going to be really difficult to pick up points.”