Kyle Cameron believes St Johnstone are a Jekyll and Hyde team at the moment.
And if the Perth side are to find a way out of an early-season crisis, they’ll need to cast off their split personality.
Saints had played their way into the game nicely at Easter Road on Saturday.
But, as the seconds ticked away in the first half, they conceded a set-piece goal yet again and allowed the disappointment of it to drag them down for the rest of the contest.
“I think that first goal deflated us,” Cameron admitted.
“You could see it in the second half. We never really got going again.
“In the first we looked comfortable. They didn’t really break us down and cause too many problems.
“We’ve spoken about it in the dressing room after the game.
“We can’t keep putting two 45s together that are complete opposites – one half of good stuff and one half of poor stuff.
“We have to start producing 90-minute performances, otherwise we’re going to just keep answering the same questions over and over again all season.
“That’s down to us as players to sort out.
“It’s something that we can only control on the pitch and we have to do that.”
More set-piece issues
Conceding from a dead ball situation was once again the trigger for a Premiership defeat.
“Set-plays are a problem that we need to address and quickly,” said Cameron.
“I think it’s just a lack of communication.
“But their player who heads it across does push someone in the back before the first contact.
“It’s probably one of them if we’d done that at their end, we would feel very hard done by if it was chalked off.
“But it looked like two hands in the back and a push.
“Look, I don’t want to make excuses. It’s just not good enough at the moment with the set-plays.”
Red mist
Benji Kimpioka has joined the list of Saints players who have lost their discipline at the end of the game.
His sending off was the team’s third in a row.
“I think you can say it’s frustration,” said Cameron.
“But you can’t take your frustration out like that. They’ve got to learn quickly and I’m sure they will.
“We’re going to obviously miss Benji and Adama (Sidibeh) next week, which is a huge game away from home.
“Obviously missing key players through suspension isn’t good.
“So we have to just do what we can with that and I’m sure the lads who are on the bench ready to replace them are more than ready.”
Cameron added: “It’s a bad thing but it’s coming from a good place if that makes sense.
“Benji put his hands up after the game and he said he wasn’t happy with his own performance.
“He expects more of himself and he’s just let that frustration boil over this week.
“Like I said, it’s something that Benji will definitely learn from him going forward in his career.”
There’s no hiding from the fact that the stakes are high in Dingwall on Saturday.
“Definitely,” said Cameron.
“We’ve only picked up three points but we’ve very much been in the games that we’ve lost.
“We feel like we could have maybe got something from all these games but we haven’t, ultimately.
“So, it comes down to Saturday being a big game where we have to go and attack it and take three points.”
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