Alston admits being hit for six sparked Saints’ season into life
BLAIR ALSTON has no trouble pin-pointing the moment St Johnstone’s season took a turn for the better. A 6-0 thrashing in front of a local audience at McDiarmid Park might seem an odd way to kick off a resurgence but the midfielder believes defeat to Celtic brought a much-needed purge.
Boss Tommy Wright demanded a return to basics and, having lost the previous four, his team were jolted into life and embarked on a five-game winning streak without conceding a goal.
Although Wright’s team sit eighth in the Premiership table, they went into the weekend just six points off the top and hold two games in hand over most of the teams above them.
‘That 6-0 game was probably the first time Celtic clicked this season,’ says Alston. ‘It could have been 26-0. They took us apart. But in a way losing like that was the best thing that could have happened to us.
‘Okay, the result was embarrassing at the time and we all came off saying: “Crikey, what’s just happened?”. But from then on we got back to what we are good at. We were a lot more solid and won five in a row without conceding.
‘Going on that run was better than, say, we’d sneaked a draw against Celtic and followed it up with a few more.
‘So it probably is the best thing that’s happened to us this season.’
Last weekend’s loss to Motherwell was the club’s first since that heavy defeat to Brendan Rodgers’ champions and today they welcome the other of Glasgow’s big two to Perth for a lunchtime clash in front of the cameras.
St Johnstone were beaten by a comprehensive scoreline on one other occasion this season when a trip to face Rangers brought a 5-1 reverse at Ibrox.
Although powerful at home, Steven Gerrard’s team have been less convincing on the road. The midweek trip to Hibs brought an energetic performance but no goals as the Ibrox side were removed from the summit of the table after just three days.
‘All the pressure is on Rangers — they’re expected to win,’ says Alston. ‘At Ibrox we lost an early goal and it can be difficult to chase a game with their support behind them. Rangers picked us off but we have had seven clean sheets in the last nine games, so we are certainly more solid now.
‘We don’t mind not having the ball but we are also capable of doing something when we have it. We don’t go into games thinking we could take a hiding.
‘Our attitude is let’s see what we can do. We think we have a good chance. We are looking for a positive result.
‘We haven’t beat them in Perth for a while but Motherwell hadn’t beaten us in years here, so these runs have a habit of ending when you don’t expect it.’
Since recovering from injury Alston (right) has played three times but, despite scoring against Hearts and Aberdeen, found himself on the bench for the Motherwell game.
His eye for a spectacular strike may well earn him a recall to the team today and the 26-yearold can also point to a decent record in his 20 previous encounters with Rangers.
‘Any time you do well against the so-called big teams you always get more attention,’ he continued. ‘I have tended to be quite lucky with goals against Rangers, going back to my time at Falkirk. ‘They were in the Championship for a couple of seasons and we always seemed to draw them in the cups. The more games you get against them you begin to feel more comfortable. ‘It feels like any other game now. I was hoping to start against Motherwell but there are probably 10 other guys who’d say the same thing. ‘The manager lives and dies by his decisions and he hasn’t got much wrong. ‘I missed a large part of the good run with injuries but hopefully I have done enough in the last couple of weeks to get a start against Rangers.’