St Johnstone’s Scottish Cup dream was obliterated by a four-goal Celtic barrage in 11 minutes at Hampden Park.
But head coach, Simo Valakari, is optimistic that the Perth club’s hopes of staying in the Premiership won’t be similarly blown away over the next few weeks.
Saints were beaten 5-0 by the treble-chasing Hoops in their cup semi-final, with most of the damage done in the last part of the first half.
Four down at the break, Valakari wanted to avoid the sort of thrashing that would have left scars for the relegation battle to come.
According to the Finn though, their second half display enabled his team to leave the national stadium with “pride” intact.
“There were tactical things talked about at half-time, of course,” he said.
“But we had to show what kind of team we are.
“It would have been so easy to collapse.
“There was no other choice.
“The dream was gone but the pride was there.
“I think in the second half the players showed that character.
“The players who came on made me think a lot of things about how we’re going to go about these last five matches.
“This was a cup semi-final against a top opponent.
“I can’t predict the future, but I have said it for a long time, we can do a lot of good things, but our bad things are dragging us down.
“If we can fix that I believe our level is good enough to stay in this league.”
Stick to the plan
Celtic were at their best from the moment they broke the deadlock after the half-hour mark by Brendan Rodgers’ own admission.
And Valakari believes that sticking to the game plan was a key difference in the game-defining period of the match.
“It was a tough afternoon,” he said.
“Of course, it wasn’t the result we wanted. We’ve got no complaints.
“They came with relentless energy. We stayed solid for 30 minutes but made a couple of not so good decisions with the ball.
“They punished us.
“Celtic were still doing the same things at the end of the game as at the beginning.
“We did 30 minutes of things we were practicing then we thought: ‘Let’s try something different’.
“Boom – everything went out of our hands.
“We need to be patient and know what is working.
“We deserved to be in this semi-final. It was a fantastic cup journey.
“Yes, we are sad, and we suffered a bit. But we need to freshen up and go again tomorrow.”
Two changes
Valakari was forced into one change to his starting line-up from the previous weekend’s defeat to Dundee United, with Sven Sprangler replacing the injured Zach Mitchell in the back four as expected.
Another alteration was less predictable – Nicky Clark making his first start in over three months in place of Makenzie Kirk.
Daniels Balodis broke his nose in training during the week, so had to wear a face mask.
Within two minutes you could see there was no danger of the Latvian international being anything short of 100% committed, as he threw his body in the way of an Arne Engels shot on the 18-yard line.
Valakari would have been quite satisfied with the first half-hour of the contest.
Celtic bossed possession and territory, to nobody’s surprise, but all of the shots that came Andy Fisher’s way were from long range and either straight at him or wide of the target.
Unfortunately, the one player Saints didn’t want to give space to when he got the chance to shoot from distance was Callum McGregor, and the Perth side’s resistance was broken on 34 minutes by the Celtic captain’s low, curled 20-yard effort.
The fact that the opener came after Saints coughed up possession from a goal-kick amplified the sense of frustration.
From then until half-time, the roof fell in.
Three more goals followed.
For 2-0, Sam Curtis didn’t deal with a pass inside him for Daizen Maeda. Once more, Fisher had no chance of saving the shot.
Adama Idah finished from close range on 44 minutes and then seconds later Maeda bagged his second when the Saints defenders were again guilty of backing off.
Disallowed goal
Valakari made three changes for the second half, with Benji Kimpioka, Taylor Steven and Kirk replacing Adama Sidibeh, Barry Douglas and Clark.
One of the subs, Kirk, scored a spectacular goal from 25 yards but VAR official, Steven McLean, intervened and referee, Calum Scott, ended up chalking it off for a Balodis push in the back of Idah.
It was a soft decision, in keeping with the afternoon.
Valakari said: “Yes, there was some kind of shove but I feel for Makenzie. It was a beautiful strike. That’s how it is.”
Scott made an inexplicable call to penalise Balodis for a shoulder to shoulder challenge on Forrest in the box.
Mercifully, he was sent to his touchline monitor once again – this time to overturn the penalty.
There was nothing wrong with Celtic’s fifth goal – a Jota back post finish on 67 minutes.
Uche Ikpeazu getting 15 minutes of action at the end of the game was a positive for Saints, but the cup dream is over and now they have to lift themselves to save their Premiership status.
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