The thread on which St Johnstone’s Premiership status hangs became even thinner at the weekend.
The Perth side desperately need upward momentum to begin in Lanarkshire.
But the first game of the post-split phase of the season saw them drop a point further adrift at the bottom of the table, rather than close the gap.
Saints lost 3-2 at Motherwell.
Ross County, six points in front of Simo Valakari’s men, are now the only team realistically catchable.
Mind you, the word realistically, is as frayed as the prospect of survival.
Courier Sport picks out five talking points from the Fir Park contest.
An exquisite team goal
It really is a shame that Saints’ opener ended up counting for naught – because it may well have been their best team goal of the season.
Valakari has preached passing out from the back when the circumstances suit it, and this was a perfect example of why.
Goalkeeper, Andy Fisher, spotted that Motherwell weren’t pressing high as a unit and that Graham Carey had enough space between two opposition players to take a good first touch, turn and then do what he does best.
The reason Carey was deployed in a deeper role alongside Jason Holt on Saturday was for moments like this.
Nobody in the Saints squad is better equipped than he to drop a ball over a defender who hasn’t got his winger in check and make sure that winger doesn’t have to break stride to receive it.
Josh McPake was dynamic and cut the ball back on a perfect angle, while Kirk timed his run into the box to perfection, showing composure with a shot that needed control rather than force.
From keeper to centre-forward. One end of the pitch to the other. Everything about the goal was immaculate in its execution.
If it had been scored earlier in the season, we’d have been saying that, even in defeat, this was something meaningful to build upon.
Mental fragility
Good teams don’t concede two goals in less than a minute.
With the greatest respect to Motherwell and Tony Watt – they certainly don’t concede two goals in less than a minute to this opponent, with that player being the key figure in both.
Sam Curtis might have been playing out of position but the way in which he let Watt get by him for the first goal wasn’t the error of a man suffering in unfamiliar terrain.
He was on the touchline, his natural habitat.
For the second, Daniels Balodis didn’t have an excuse either for allowing Watt to find a way past him. (It happened again in the second half).
There have been numerous occasions over the course of the season of one goal against St Johnstone followed by another far too swiftly, albeit it looked as if Saints had kicked the habit.
Maybe its recency bias, but this felt like the worst example in the category.
If (more likely, when) reflecting upon defeats turns into a relegation post-mortem, an inability to suck the oxygen out of a game after conceding will be a significant part of it.
It’s not tactical. It’s not physical. It’s mental fragility.
An injury too far
The 29th minute at Tannadice.
That will likely go down as the moment the survival mountain became too high to climb.
Zach Mitchell’s hamstring injury was a bigger blow to Saints’ hopes of staying in the top-flight than the goal scored from a corner by Dundee United a few minutes earlier.
It was too much to expect a back four that had just lost its one in-form full-back the week before (Drey Wright) to be able to absorb the absence of the only centre-back with pace, without there being a dip in standard.
I can totally understand why, with just one fit central defender and one wide defender whose legs haven’t gone available to him, Valakari thought the best sticking plaster remedy would be to use wingers as wing-backs and pull the full-back into a back three.
Unfortunately, Curtis has lost form and confidence and so has Balodis.
It’s probably no coincidence that has happened while Mitchell, a class act, isn’t beside them.
The Charlton youngster helped both look better at their jobs – as Bozo Mikulic had done before.
And, as was highlighted with the third Motherwell goal, Sven Sprangler has some of the ingrained attributes needed in a centre-half but the instinct of knowing where to be when a ball is about to be crossed, and an opponent is about to get a run on you, isn’t one of them.
None of the players mentioned above lacked effort – none of their team-mates did, actually – but they’ve been caught in a vicious circle of injuries and a squad lacking quality in depth.
So has the manager.
It’s easy, and a natural instinct, to point out the problems.
But sometimes, when the options are so sparse, there simply aren’t any appropriate solutions.
McPake and Steven
Part of the issue regarding Motherwell’s second goal, and the collective loss of heads that helped bring it about, was the two left-sided players didn’t track the man who got a shot on goal that resulted in Sprangler turning it into his own net.
But given the way Josh McPake and Taylor Steven played overall – the latter as a square peg in a round hole – you almost want to exonerate them.
In general, Saints defended more effectively on their left than their right and carried a greater attacking threat.
McPake’s first instinct is to go forward.
If Saints were a mid-table table with a reliable back four, we would have seen a lot more of him, especially in home games.
He drew fouls, took on his direct opponent time and time again, produced two assists and nearly made it three with a back post header that Uche Ikpeazu was unlucky not to help over the line.
With eye-catching cameos, McPake had earned his first Premiership start. After staying on until the end, he has earned his second seven days later.
We’ll see how Valakari goes about building his squad for next season before talking-up the former Rangers forward as a potential first team regular in waiting.
But what can be said with confidence is that Steven has significantly enhanced his reputation.
He’s barely been seen in his best position – off the right in a front three – but has shown himself to be Premiership-ready all the same.
In the Championship, Steven should get a lot of game-time.
All four?
Post-match, Valakari spoke about the need to win all four of Saints’ remaining fixtures.
Given Ross County are enduring a run of five defeats in a row, that may not actually be the case.
If, however, the Dingwall side do sort themselves out, it’s game over.
Dundee and Kilmarnock are out of sight.
This is a cavernous hole Saints find themselves in.
And there is absolutely no way out of it that doesn’t involve winning their next two home games.
A month ago, I would have given them a good chance of doing that but the issues with the backline are eroding hope, never mind expectation.
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