SLOW START IS NOTHING NEW BUT DAVIDSON DEMANDS A RAPID TURNAROUND
MURRAY DAVIDSON has seen it all before. He’s got the t-shirt, in fact he’s got a closet full of them. St Johnstone are struggling to get going under new boss Callum Davidson following seven years of Tommy Wright’s tried-and-tested formula. Saturday’s defeat to Livingston was a third successive loss without scoring, sending Saints second bottom. However, Davidson refuses to fret. In between the successes of five top-six finishes from the seven campaigns masterminded by Wright, there were similar barren runs.
Take the start of last season. Wright’s side had a nine-game winless sequence and were languishing at the basement with four points from nine outings before turning it around. ‘I’ve seen it so many times,’ said midfielder Davidson, who made his first start of the season against the Lions following injury. ‘We go seven, eight, nine games without winning and then suddenly we go on a run. It could take a game where we get battered but win 1-0. ‘It’s still early but it still hurts that we lost and it will hurt this weekend but we’ll regroup. ‘The manager can’t keep coming in saying we’re doing this or that right, it comes down to winning games. I don’t think we’re far away but I’ve heard opposition teams say in the past: “You’re
rubbish but you win games”. I’d rather be standing here having been played off the park but won 1-0.’ The new manager came in and made tweaks to the style that was successful under Wright. But, after losing their sixth game from nine league outings, midfielder Davidson wants to make the beautiful game ugly again. ‘We have to do better, whether it’s pressing more, being horrible, fouling someone,’ he said. ‘The manager said we have to roll our sleeves up because the only way we’re getting that first goal is being more ugly if that’s what it takes. We have to get back to that. ‘It’s nothing to do with the manager. He and his staff have been brilliant since coming in. We could have Sir Alex Ferguson as manager and if we give away goals like we have done, then we’re not going to win games.’ Saints failed to recover from a two-goal salvo within a minute in the first half. Scott Tiffoney opened the scoring before setting up Alan Forrest to stroke home seconds later. Despite Tiffoney’s slight frame, Livingston captain Marvin Bartley insists he’s becoming a huge presence. ‘Scott got what he deserved,’ said Bartley. ‘He’s improving and for him to get a goal was brilliant. ‘We’ve said to Tiff: “You need to use your body to hold the ball up, don’t let people come through you”. He has great pace going in behind, too, which gives us something different to (Lyndon) Dykesy. ‘We said to him at half-time: “If you blow up after 60 minutes we don’t care, we’ve got subs who can come on for you. So run yourself into the ground and give everything you’ve got”. It’s about staying at that level, because he’ll be the next one, people will look at him thinking: “Wow, he can do it”.’