St Johnstone’s defeat to Hearts means the Perth side will have to beat Rangers on the last day of the SPL to guarantee Europa League football next season.
The McDiarmid Park men now find themselves in sixth place, two points adrift of the Edinburgh club, after goals in each half by Rudi Skacel and Andy Webster.
If Saints fail to get their first win since the split on Sunday they will be relying on Hearts defeating Hibs in the Scottish Cup final.
This is the first time that European qualification has been out of their own control, but Saints boss Steve Lomas is determined to finish the season on a high.
He said: ”There’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves and giving up. Football can change very quickly. We know beating Rangers won’t be easy and we’ll have to rely on Celtic as well.
“We wanted to come away from here with it still being in our hands but unfortunately it won’t be. The aim has always been to get into Europe on our own merits.”
Lomas added: “We’ve got 90 minutes to try and give ourselves a chance. We want to go out on a win. Getting five defeats in a row is never good at any time.”
As far as Sunday’s game was concerned, Lomas was unhappy at the space both Hearts goalscorers were afforded.
He said: ”I probably expected a bit more from us, but goals change games. They were both very poor from our point of view.
”We had a few chances ourselves and maybe if we’d taken one it might have been a different story. Overall, Hearts probably deserved it and to lose is a huge disappointment because this was a massive game.
”We came here to try and be positive and go for the win. If we had to settle for the draw we’d have taken that.”
Hearts manager Paulo Sergio said: ”It was a credit to us that we didn’t allow them to play. St Johnstone area very good team which makes this an even better win.”