St Johnstone boss, Simo Valakari, has admitted that his team have “stretched the patience” of the Perth fanbase.
But even though the post-split phase of the season got off to a losing start and the margin for error is almost non-existent, the Finn is adamant that there is still life in their Premiership survival battle.
Valakari believes it might take four wins from four to stay up, following Saturday’s 3-2 defeat at Motherwell.
Saints have two home games coming up.
And beating Kilmarnock may even give them the chance of going above Ross County when those two sides clash at McDiarmid Park in the second of them.
“I know we are stretching the patience of our fans by far,” said Valakari. “But it’s not over.
“It wasn’t the start to the split we wanted, and we are now in a situation where we need help off other teams around us.
“From our point of view we can only take the next game. We have two at home coming up now.
“We have put ourselves in a more difficult position, but we’re not hiding.
“There’s no hiding from the criticism. We take it and we’ll be ready for this weekend.
“We need the fans. It’s our job on the field to get our supporters fired up.
“They saw in the second half against Motherwell with the way we kept pushing to the end that the fight is there.
“Sometimes the things we’re doing haven’t been good enough – the fans understand that – but they can see the fight is there.
“Hopefully this weekend the fans will be there, making a good atmosphere and pushing the team.
“The fight continues.”
Impact from the fringes
Fringe players like Taylor Steven, Josh McPake and Elliot Watt caught Valakari’s eye on Saturday.
All will be in contention to start against Kilmarnock, while more game-time for Uche Ikpeazu is to be expected.
“Taylor and Josh were very good down our left-hand side,” said Valakari. “Elliot Watt as well.
“He has been patient – a lot of training trying to show what he can do and he did that when he came on.
“That was the way to show the manager you should be playing.
“It’s important to have the 11 players playing and the others ready to play.
“Getting Uche back, we have all seen now how he change the dimension of our game.
“But with Uche, we still have a bit to learn – you can’t always go straight to him with a long ball.
“We need to get a little bit closer in these moments.”
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