St Johnstone running out of time to tackle string of weaknesses

You could legitimately put forward an argument that St Johnstone had a slightly better weekend than Ross County and that in a two-horse Premiership survival battle, that’s all that matters.

The gap between the sides is still one point and there are now only four games rather than five for County to alter that.

Also, playing against bottom of the table Livingston should always be a more attractive fixture than playing against Hibs.

But hoping your opponent is as bad as you, or worse, isn’t a strategy likely to pay off in the end.

The Highlanders have beaten a team challenging for the title this month, let’s not forget.

And they’ve got three games to come in Dingwall, where their recent form is impressive.

DECISION-MAKING

Craig Levein was quite right to pinpoint passing accuracy as a gamedefining flaw of his team.

It thwarted any chance of building sustained attacking momentum and invited counterattacking pressure on their backline.

But decision-making rivalled it as the key shortcoming in this contest.

Emiliano Marcondes’ sixth minute free-kick goal was dead-ball perfection.

However, Dan Phillips had no need to foul Martin Boyle in such a dangerous position with Nicky Clark in the perfect position to tackle him.

For the second goal, two men challenged for a header from a long-throw.

Then in the build-up to the third, if Phillips has had a shout from Liam Gordon he should have got out of the way and let the centre-half clear the ball up field and if Gordon didn’t put his name on the ball coming their way, he should have left it to his team-mate and filled the space behind him.

The Saints players need to be more precise with their choices, not just their passing.

NO AREA OF STRENGTH

Saints have four games left and you’d be hard pushed to name an outfield player who is in consistently good form for high stakes, May football.

That’s a scary thought. Not only does Levein not have the comfort of being able to predict whether a given game will produce a collective display of substance, the separate parts of it are now equally erratic.

The mistakes at the back have been spread around over the last few games. No defender has been immune.

Central midfield, once an area of real strength compared to other bottom six clubs, is currently far too easy to play through and doesn’t give the team a platform to build attacks.

Creative width has been a problem from day one and remains so.

And up front Adama Sidibeh and Benji Kimpioka are understandably peaks and troughs performers given their age and unfamiliarity with Scottish football, while the team is toiling badly to get the best out of Nicky Clark and Nicky Clark is toiling badly to get the best out of the team.

Getting defence, midfield and attack all on point at one time would probably be too much to ask of a team in St Johnstone’s perilous position.

But even getting one of the thirds functioning well would give them a fighting chance of staying ahead of County, whose strikeforce is their best bet of 10th and safety.

THE ROCK

Even on an afternoon when their team shipped three goals, gaps were opening up alarmingly on other occasions, and passes and crosses weren’t finding their target, the most worrying half a minute for Saints fans would have been when Dimitar Mitov went to the ground clutching his leg late in the match.

The Bulgarian will soon sweep the board with player of the year awards.

There haven’t been many seasons since the club returned to the top flight, if any, when one man has been so far in front of the rest in terms of his consistency of performance.

This was yet another occasion when Mitov delivered while those in front of him underwhelmed.

These days, you just take for granted that he’ll make very good saves appear routine.

With David Marshall and Kelle Roos soon to be out of contract, surely both Hibs and Aberdeen will find out how much it would cost to buy the Bulgarian international in the summer.

English Championship clubs should also be paying close attention – he’s better than Vaclav Hladky, who cost promotion-chasing Ipswich Town a win at Hull on Saturday.

Dimitar Mitov.