The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Old habits back to hurt Perth men
In their second-half collapse against Ross County, St Johnstone were a “shadow” of the team that had started to build Premiership momentum, according to manager Callum Davidson.
The Perth side had already seen Callum Hendry’s opening goal cancelled out by the league’s in-form forward, Regan Charles-cook, before the break.
But the second-45 performance, and the two goals scored against them in that time, saw the return of worrying habits Davidson had hoped his Saints side had kicked.
“The second half disappoints me,” he said. “The way we lost the goals.
“The first half was good but then we were a shadow of what we have been recently. This was such a massive game.
“It wasn’t the pressure but we are fragile when we lose a goal and we didn’t respond at all.
“Performances have been good. At times we have had poor refereeing decisions but this was all down to the players.
“For me, it didn’t seem like the players were hungry enough.
“That’s maybe a bad accusation to label at them as they’ve been good.
“But we didn’t do enough – to stop their goals and create. I just want them to be positive.
“There are five games to the split and we need to start winning games and being positive.
“The fans were great but we didn’t give them anything to shout about and I need to apologise.”
Saints now welcome Rangers to Mcdiarmid Park in midweek and, even though they remain just two points above Dundee and the pressure is intense, Davidson is determined that they will play with the shackles off.
“We will go again on Wednesday night and we will be at it in a tough game but we need to show more.
“I’d rather go down being positive and getting beaten, rather than what we showed for the second half.
“The players were confident in the first half and carried out the game plan well. But the second half wasn’t good enough.
“We didn’t defend well, we didn’t track runs and we were 3-1 down. But what disappointed me most was how we reacted to that.
“You have to play forward, be positive and try to make things happen.
“Instead, we went safe and went into our shell.
“I was really disappointed we didn’t put County under more pressure because we should have.”
The only good news of the day for Perth fans came from Dens Park, where Mark Mcghee’s Dundee were being thrashed by Livingston.
That means Saints are still two points above the bottom, but they really needed to draw or win in the Highlands to retain any realistic hope of catching the Staggies.
They were in a good position to do so when Callum Hendry opened the scoring – his fourth goal in six games.
Regan Charles-cook and Joseph Hungbo then did their thing, though, ably assisted by some poor Saints defending and another second-half slump.
It was a game of very few chances in the first period, with both sides taking their best one.
Saints were first to find the net on 24 minutes.
Melker Hallberg fed the ball out wide to Tom Sang on the right.
The on-loan Cardiff City wing-back’s left-foot cross to the back post picked out Hendry who had a lot of work still to do to get a header into the top corner.
It had been a very tight contest up until that point and Saints were comfortable for a spell thereafter, which made it all the more frustrating that they conceded an equaliser on 36 minutes.
Charles-cook was afforded too much space just outside the box to curl a low, right-foot effort past Elliott Parish.
The Perth side didn’t start the second half well and they were a goal behind eight minutes into it.
The defenders did not deal with a long throw and Charles-cook was in the right place beyond the back post (and unmarked) to hook his shot over Parish.
It was effectively game over on 67 minutes when County’s other star man, Hungbo, got in on the act with a sweetly struck shot after the Saints defence had not cleared their box effectively.