That top beat bottom at Ibrox was no surprise.
And that top beat bottom pretty convincingly wasn’t either.
Rangers are a side that looks to be hitting top gear under their new manager, while St Johnstone are still struggling to find any sort of end of year rhythm.
It’s five defeats in a row – the worst run of losses in Callum Davidson’s time as manager.
Form will have to be found in what remains of the festive programme if Saints are to arrive at the mid-season break without being cut adrift at the foot of the Premiership table.
Goals from Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent secured the victory for Rangers, still 100% in the league under Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
They were scored either side of half-time and it was a case of a clinical job done.
For Saints, the same big question remains.
Where are the goals going to come from?
There are five fixtures left before help on that front can be found in the January transfer window.
Some points will be needed from those before the cavalry arrives.
Butterfield debut
It was maybe a surprise to see that the visitors were the team with multiple changes from the weekend and not the hosts.
For Saints, Craig Bryson, Callum Booth, Chris Kane and Glenn Middleton all dropped out, with Jacob Butterfield (his debut), Reece Devine, Eetu Vertainen and Michael O’Halloran replacing them.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst made a solitary alteration to his starting line-up – Ianis Hagi for Fashion Sakala.
Rangers have been fast starters under the Dutchman and they applied early pressure here too.
Twice Shaun Rooney failed to get close enough to Kent and twice the forward was able to cut inside and get a shot away, with the second of those nearly finding the net.
It was shaping up to be a long night for the Saints wing-back as Kent fired in another effort – this time kept out by Zander Clark with his boot at the near post – before we’d even reached 15 minutes.
Opportunities for the Perth side to break were scarce in the opening stages but one presented itself for Vertainen.
As he was driving forward his best option would have been to release Rooney, who had charged down the right but the Finn went left and his pass to Ali Crawford was cut out.
Heroic defending was going to have to be a recurring theme for Saints and there were two examples of it midway through the half – Rooney sensing danger to deny Kent a tap-in from a Joe Aribo cross and James Brown with a last ditch sliding tackle on Morelos.
Hard work undone
The good rearguard work was undone a couple of minutes before half-time, though.
Davidson wasn’t best pleased that Vertainen tried a flick rather than holding the ball up on the half-way line, Rangers forced a corner from regaining possession and the marking was terrible to allow Morelos a free header at the back post when Connor Goldson helped the set-piece on.
The McDiarmid Park boss took Vertainen off at half-time and replaced him with Stevie May.
Five minutes after the re-start it was 2-0 and effectively game over.
Morelos had the freedom of the right side of the pitch and Kent had nearly as much space in the box when the ball came in for him to slot a low shot past Clark.
With Rangers looking in the mood to make significant improvements to their goal difference, damage limitation was the priority for Saints.
To their credit they carved out a couple of decent chances of their own just after the hour.
64' | RFC 2 – 0 SJFC
Great chance for Saints to get a goal back.
Crawford floats in a looping cross but McCart can't get his header on target.#SJFC
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) December 15, 2021
First Devine dragged a shot just wide after taking down a Liam Craig cross-field pass and then Jamie McCart missed the target with a back post header a couple of minutes later.
On 72 minutes Rangers coughed up the ball on the edge of their own penalty area and Craig accepted the gift, carrying the ball into the box.
Just as he was about to shoot he went down and, rather than award a penalty, referee Euan Anderson booked the veteran midfielder for diving.
Saints didn’t get any better chances to set-up an unlikely comeback and they now move on to Motherwell in search of precious points.
