“There can be big swings after the split.”
It’s a phrase which regularly gets trotted out as game 34 approaches and the Scottish Premiership divides in two.
St Johnstone certainly need it to be the case if they are to survive in the top-flight.
Five points adrift of second bottom Dundee and six of Kilmarnock and Ross County, the Perth side have a mountain to climb when the league campaign resumes on Saturday.
It would be the greatest post-split escape act since the SPFL established this format for the 2000/01 season, if Simo Valakari’s team achieve it.
Courier Sport has looked back down the years to provide some cause for hope.
2000/01 – United’s McDiarmid Park comeback
If the original split season had lacked drama, maybe the concept wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has.
St Johnstone were actually in the middle of that drama, albeit their top division status wasn’t in jeopardy (that would happen the year after when they were relegated by a 19-point margin).
Going into the split, St Mirren were four points behind Dundee United and at the end of the season the gap to safety (there was no play-off back then) was five.
That doesn’t do justice to the tightrope United had been walking, how close they came to falling off it and how good their results needed to be to stay up.
The Buddies beat United in the first post-split fixture and were leading Aberdeen in the penultimate game, while United were losing 2-0 at McDiarmid Park.
Like United in 2001, St Johnstone have just been beaten by Celtic in a Scottish Cup semi-final while the league paused.
If Saints could emulate the Terrors’ four straight wins, it would give them an excellent chance of staying up.
2004/05 – Dundee’s Almondvale trauma
It’s a 20th anniversary that won’t be celebrated by Dundee fans.
Even though the Dark Blues lost 3-2 in Inverness, they still went into the post-split phase with two teams trailing them by four points (Dunfermline and Livingston) and one by three (Dundee United).
If there was a sense of comfort at Dens Park, it proved to be unwarranted.
Jim Duffy’s team lost their first three games and drew the last two.
Craig Easton’s equaliser went into the record books as the goal that sent Dundee down (by a point) but a late Tam McManus shot that hit the post captured the agony of last day relegation.
Saints fans will be hoping history repeats itself for their local rivals at McDiarmid Park next month.
2008/09 – Last day decider in the Highlands
The season St Johnstone secured promotion to the top-flight ironically gives the current team cause for optimism about their prospects of staying in it.
After the first round of post-split games, Inverness Caledonian Thistle looked all but safe.
They beat St Mirren in Paisley thanks to a late Ross Tokely goal, lifting Terry Butcher’s side into ninth place, four points above bottom of the table Falkirk.
Two draws and a defeat, combined with Falkirk gaining two points on them, set-up an opportunity for the Bairns to leapfrog Caley Thistle on the final afternoon of the season by winning in the Highlands.
2022/23 – United’s collapse
This is what a proper post-split implosion looks like.
After Dundee United had seen off Livingston in their last fixture before the league was divided in two (their third victory in a row) they had gone from five points adrift at the bottom to four clear of Ross County.
It had been an incredible 13-day turnaround.
However, Jim Goodwin’s talk of picking off other sides above them proved premature and Saints’ 1-0 win in the Tayside derby sent the Tangerines back on a downwards spiral.
They lost all five post-split matches, with County ending up three points ahead of them.
If – and it’s obviously a huge if – Dundee, Kilmarnock or County ‘do a United’, Saints would only need to win two games to get into the play-offs.
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