Callum Davidson’s walk across to the St Johnstone supporters at full-time after his team’s latest Premiership defeat had the look of a man acknowledging that the performance against Livingston was another one well short of the standards he and they expect.
And his post-match comments echoed the point of shared frustrations at a display and result that piles on the Premiership pressure.
“I can understand the fans’ frustration because I’m probably even more annoyed watching that than they are,” said Davidson, whose team were booed off for the second Saturday in a row.
“This is a tough league but I just expect my players to be better than they were today.
“The thing that disappoints me most is that I told the players not to take too many touches on a difficult surface but they didn’t listen and we took too many touches.
“We switched to a back four today to simplify things, with one centre-back tight on the striker and the other dropping off but at the first goal no-one goes tight and he’s allowed to turn and play the ball forward.
“I was very disappointed by that first half. It just wasn’t good enough.”
Saints are now just five points above 12th place and four above 11th and the themes that are dragging them into real trouble are recurring ones.
Davidson added: “I’ve said that all along, our results haven’t been great in the last three or four games and we should be doing better.
“For me, basic mistakes have cost us in those matches but do they want to just sit and accept that or do they roll their sleeves up?
“I’ve told the players that it wasn’t good enough. Again, the goals we’re losing were poor.”
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