Facing Celtic and Rangers in back-to-back games is a daunting run for even the most in-form Scottish Premiership side.
Brendan Rodgers’ rampant Hoops showed no mercy at McDiarmid Park on Saturday, battering Saints 6-0 to add to their torrid record of five defeats in seven league games. Although perhaps events in Dortmund on Tuesday night may have eased the Perth players’ suffering a little.
St Johnstone know they must pick themselves up quickly, for there will be no respite in a trip to Ibrox on Sunday.
For newly appointed manager Simo Valakari, it will a first opportunity to see his squad in action, although he will not be permitted in the dugout due to a delay with his work permit. “As a club, we have done everything, you know, to make things happen as quickly as possible but unfortunately, I will be in the directors’ box,” he said.
“We should not go there with fear. Let's go and play there. Because everybody will think we’re going to lose anyway. So, if it does happen that we lose, which doesn’t have to be the case, let's make sure at the very least that we lose in our own way.
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He added: “We go there thinking it's possible. We go there doing things what we think we need to do to win the football match. Do we win or not? I don't know that. But we go there for it.”
The 51-year-old former Motherwell midfielder has signed a three-year contract with the Perth club and was unveiled as the new head coach on Tuesday, two weeks after Craig Levein’s departure after just ten months in charge.
Valakari – who led Finnish side SJK to top-flight promotion and then onto their first-ever league title in 2015 – has long been eager to return to Scotland where he says “everyone is breathing football". In 1996, he joined Motherwell where he made more than 100 appearances over four seasons. The Fir Park club, he says, made him the player he was.
While there have been opportunities in the past for the former Finland international to return to the country he once called home, it is only now that the right one has come along.
He said: “I have to say the timing was not right, and I was not right at that moment to be ready, but now all this, my experience, what I've had, the timing with the old club, the timing here, this fresh start, everything went together.”
Valakari is confident he can turn around the struggling side, for whom conceding late goals has become an unwelcome pattern this season.
Against Ross County, St Johnstone shipped goals in the 87th and 97th minutes to let a 3-1 lead slip, with the match ending in a 3-3 draw. They let in goals in the 88th minute against Dundee United and in the 94th minute in the 2-1 defeat to Motherwell.
“I’ve looked at the videos and we can all see the end product - what was the final mistake, what happened, that sort of thing,” Valakari said.
“But there's always a cause and effect. Something might have happened higher up the park. If everyone is on the same page, it will help us minimize these mistakes.
“Because for me, the personal mistakes, it's like you have been exposed to pressure or something. That's why this is the collective sport, that through the structure, through the way of playing, we can help these individuals to be better.
“Losing these last-minute goals affects you and then you start doing physically, tactically, different things that we have not been doing in training. Then it becomes much more difficult.”
Adama Sidibeh's return to the squad on Sunday will provide a huge boost; the striker has been serving a four-match ban since his double red card against Dundee United. It was Sidibeh’s brace that helped the Saints seal their only win of the campaign so far against Kilmarnock, who themselves were reduced to ten men after fifteen minutes.
Valakari adds that he expects to be able to freshen up his squad in January. “I have said I want to assess our players,” he said. “That is important. But yes, definitely, there is a possibility [to sign new players in January].
“January is quite a long way away. It’s not about January, it's now, and we have these players. We need to work, and I need to improve them.”
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