St Johnstone striker Steven MacLean admits Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers “hit the nail on the head” when he questioned the Perth players’ inconsistency.
While some may feel Rodgers’ comments after Sunday’s goalless draw at Celtic Park were an attempt at deflection away from a poor result for his own team, MacLean thinks the Hoops boss was spot on with his criticism of the opposition.
Rodgers had asked: “How can you win a game 3-1 at Ibrox on 16 December, not win a game right the way through, apart from the Albion game, then your next big result is away at Celtic?
“So I think the question goes with the St Johnstone players.
“Today you’ve seen them organised, committed, fighting, running – doing all of that. If they do that in every game they would probably win a lot more games.”
Those words may have stung some people but not, it seems, the Saints players.
Indeed, MacLean, after an initial chuckle, felt the Northern Irishman’s assessment was bang on.
“I think he had a point, to be honest,” said MacLean.
“When I first read it I had a wee laugh but after that I had to admit he has hit the nail on the head.
“We probably deserve criticism because if you can put performances on like we did but lose some of the games the way we have then it’s hard to argue.
“If you can play like that against Celtic why can’t you do it every week? It’s a fair point.
“Whether it’s up to him to say it or not, I don’t know, but he’s a top manager and when he speaks everyone listens.
“We are all big boys here so we can take criticism.
“As a squad we have spoken about it ourselves and realise we have to take that Celtic performance into every game from now on.
“We need to do that extra bit for each other and work harder,” added MacLean.
“I feel we haven’t been doing that of late, we haven’t been horrible to play against and hard to beat.
“We know we’re not a great side and we won’t win every game, but what we can be is hard-working and tough to beat.
“We have a bit of quality and we show that once we have a grip of games, but it has been doing the things we need to do to get to that point we’ve been lacking. That’s the way St Johnstone played in my time here and that’s what we have to get back to.
“Everything we have done in the last five or six years has been down to that and if we are going to get ourselves out of the bother we’re in then that’s what we have to do.
“There have been a lot of reasons but as players we have to take our share of the blame.”
Saints have the perfect opportunity to show they do not just raise their game for the “big” teams when bottom club Ross County visit McDiarmid Park on Saturday.
There seems to be a real determination among the players to kick on from that battling draw they achieved at Parkhead.
“The proof of that will be how we play this weekend against County and then in the games we have left,” said MacLean.
“It is OK doing it against Celtic but where we will really be judged is in the rest of the games.
“This one is a massive game for us because if County beat us they go three points behind us but if we win then the gap will be nine with two games in hand.
“They will come to our place knowing if they beat us they can suck us into the automatic relegation place so they will be up for it.
“But if we can get that nine-point gap then they will find it more difficult to drag us back to them.
“So it’s huge, we know that and we won’t be going out giving our all because of what Brendan Rodgers said about it.
“We will be giving our all because we want to get away from the bottom end of the table.”
Meanwhile, Richard Foster is facing a few weeks on the sidelines due to the hamstring injury he suffered against Celtic, while Stefan Scougall has had his ankle operation.
