St Johnstone manager Steven MacLean has suggested some of his players looked like they “chucked it” in their 4-0 defeat to St Mirren.
The Perth side suffered their heaviest Premiership loss of the season and their nine-game winless run leaves them five points adrift at the foot of the table.
From being comfortable and on top of the Paisley contest after over half an hour, Saints “imploded” by MacLean’s admission.
And the McDiarmid Park boss questioned the character of members of his side.
“Whether we played well first half or not, it is not acceptable,” said MacLean.
“The goals we lost are unacceptable. It’s the basics of football.
“In the second half, we just imploded and it looked like a couple of players chucked it.
‘It is my responsibility and some of these players will be lucky if they play for me again.
“It is not happening under my watch. I thought it was really, really poor.
“You need to show a bravery in those situations and you need people to lead. I just thought we lacked that all over.
“I brought 11 players in and got rid of 17 and it just looked like some of them didn’t want to be there. That’s the truth.
“People will come and say this and that and I know it is my responsibility, but I am just telling you what I saw.
“I am sure a lot of you saw the same thing as me.”
Doing the right things
Asked how hurtful it is for a manager to see players he selected “chuck it”, MacLean said: “They say a leopard never changes its spots.
“It is just unacceptable. You’ve got supporters paying good money here and you have got to do the basics of football.
“They probably didn’t mean to do it like that because their head goes but at the end of the day you’ve got to show a belief and a willingness to do the right things.
“I’m not going to sit here and call out individuals but it wasn’t good enough all round.
“Sometimes in football there’s a squad and they go in a certain direction.
“Then they react to a different direction and go back to what they are.”
MacLean’s own position
On his own position, he said: “Listen, I’ll give this everything I’ve got.
“We didn’t get beaten by a shape, a team cutting us open or coaching and management.
“We got beaten by individual things.
“You can’t coach a player to run or react properly.
“I’ll certainly take responsibility – whether they do or they don’t, we’ll see.
Sven Sprangler over with the Saints fans at full-time pic.twitter.com/JgDtJuAqfH
— Eric Nicolson (@C_ENicolson) October 28, 2023
“I’ll take responsibility as long as the club want me to.
“I’ll be in tomorrow working hard, dong the right things like I have done every day, with my staff.
“It’s my team and it will be me who takes the stick.
“I’ll have a long hard think about it and I’ll certainly pick a team on Wednesday (Kilmarnock at home) that I want to represent me.”
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