Levein: Fans right to rage
CRAIG LEVEIN last night admitted he understands why Hearts fans were calling for his head after the Tynecastle team slumped to joint-bottom of the Premiership. Angry travelling fans urged their boss to go as Christophe Berra’s second-half own goal saw St Johnstone secure a 1-0 win and leap off the foot of the table. Under-fire Tynecastle manager
Levein, whose side face Rangers in the Betfred Cup semi-final at Hampden on Sunday, had no complaints over the abuse aimed in his direction. But he defiantly vowed to keep working to turn things around. ‘I understand the frustration of the supporters,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants to win games more than I do. Nobody has more of a vested interest in winning than I do. ‘I have no qualms over them voicing their frustration. But my job is not to get overly concerned about that. My job is to win football matches. ‘Yesterday the league table did not look great and it’s not going to look great for the next few weeks — even if we win matches. ‘But I’m not going to focus on that. I want us to try to win football matches and make the fans happy. ‘What needs to change? We did our defensive jobs tonight but we need to be better going forward. My job is to fix that. The frustrating thing is we took too long to chase the game. We are struggling for confidence.’ Asked if he will have to lift his players for the Rangers match, he replied: ‘It’s a semi-final, so I’d be surprised if anyone needed lifted. ‘But we have been very Jekyll and Hyde this season and I can’t really put my finger on it.’ Tommy Wright hailed young defenders Jason Kerr and Wallace Duffy after Saints kept their first clean sheet of the league season. The St Johnstone boss said: ‘I felt it was a well-deserved win. I don’t think Zander Clark had a save to make all night. ‘I thought maybe we would not be able to cope with big Uche (Ikpeazu) up front for Hearts but our two young centre-halves were magnificent. ‘They did really well to nullify Hearts. ‘We have talked before the game with the boys about possibly getting up to eighth in the table and that has happened. ‘It’s a great win and that’s two wins on the bounce for us now. But we will keep our feet on the ground.’