Saints urged to avoid being consumed by pressure of play-offs

Play-offs carry a unique type of pressure as a long, gruelling league season transitions into an all-ornothing cup-style contest.

A year’s work is on the line over two games of football.

As far as Jacob Butterfield is concerned, though, bringing as much normality to the build-up and the matches could be the secret of St Johnstone’s success.

“I’ve been involved in play-off games before,” said the midfielder, who was part of the Derby County team that lost to Hull City in the English Championship’s end-ofseason semi-final in 2016.

“You just have to treat them like any other game of football.

“It’s about winning – simple as that.

“You need to simplify your thoughts. If you overthink and put too much pressure on yourself you don’t perform to your best.

“You have to have a clear mind.

“As a group we’ll work on everything we have to do to get ourselves in the right frame of mind and to be ready for Inverness.

“We’ve got a very experienced group, with thousands of games between us.

“If we perform to the level we’re capable of I’m confident we’ll get the job done.”

Butterfield cannot claim to be an expert on Scottish second tier football but he does know that any side winning with a two-man handicap, as Inverness did in Arbroath, will provide formidable opposition to Saints.

“I watched the Inverness game,” said the former Norwich City and Luton Town man.

“It was hard to gauge it but we’ll certainly give them total respect because they’ve been at the top end of their league all year.

“And they’ve come through two rounds of play-off games.

“Any team that can win with nine men has to be respected.

“They’ve got momentum.

“We’ll need to do the right things and be at our best.

“A lot can happen over two legs but it’s one game at a time and we’ll be looking to put our stamp on the play-off right from the off and win the first leg.

“Physically, mentally we need to be ready to stand up to the task and play our football.”

Butterfield has started Saints’ last two matches, the most recent of which at Easter Road did not carry any jeopardy or real meaning.

“Obviously for us the focus is the play-offs and the result (4-0 to Hibs) maybe doesn’t matter in that regard,” he said.

“The game gave the manager the opportunity to rest the players he wanted to rest and get some minutes into lads who haven’t played as much.

“That was the right thing to do.”

Jacob Butterfield has told of the need for normality.