Simo Valakari offers thoughts on St Johnstone survival points target

If St Johnstone boss, Simo Valakari, has a points target in mind to keep the Perth club in the Premiership he won’t be revealing it.

Staying in touching distance of second bottom was the pre-split target – which has just about been achieved, albeit the definition has been stretched as far as it will go.

Now, Valakari’s sole focus is getting the final phase of the season off to a flier at Motherwell, which would start to make the maths look a lot healthier.

“There’s no point thinking like that,” said the Finn, when asked what mark his team needs to reach over the next five matches.

“It really has to be one game at a time.

“We have been talking a lot about what we needed to do before the split but now that is done.

“The situation and the facts are clear.

“It’s pretty simple.

“We won’t waste our energy thinking about what’s happening in other games. It’s all about us – our performance and our result.”

Valakari added: “Everybody is in the bottom six for a reason.

“All the teams are under pressure.

“You can go all the way up to Hearts – they want to show they belong in the top six.

“There are a lot of things depending on the results of these next few games.

“This is how it should be at the end of a season – that you play for things that matter in massive games.”

No more collapses

Valakari was pleased with a lot of aspects of Saints’ play in two matches against Celtic.

But he knows that collapsing after conceding the first goal of the Scottish Cup semi-final can’t be repeated.

“I want the cup semi-final to be a reminder of what can happen after one moment,” he said.

“We were right in the game – we had played Celtic for over 120 minutes and not conceded a goal.

“And then, after the first goal, we lost everything.

“Even if we make a mistake and it costs us a goal, we can’t let that moment affect us.

“Straight away we have to be back in the present and respond with good quality actions.

“We’ve had a tough run of games. We have been tested, and we have learned a lot of things.

“Now the pressure changes.

“It’s a different pressure when you need to win and there’s more expectation.

“The best way to handle that pressure is to concentrate on the football things.”