Simo Valakari’s St Johnstone reboot will include self-reflection on his part.
The Perth boss has called a spade a spade when assessing the shortcomings in his team that got relegated.
And, after looking in the mirror, Valakari has been equally open about the lessons he has taken on board from his first few months as a head coach in Scotland.
“It has been a big learning experience,” the Finn, who took over from Craig Levein last autumn, admitted.
“Of course, I knew what it was like here (having played in Scotland with Motherwell).
“But it has been more difficult than I was thinking.
“The way of playing is so deep in Scottish football.
“It’s so deep, the characteristics of the players.
“How big, strong, how good they are in the second balls – I have NEVER seen that anywhere else.
“I need to adapt my way of doing things, not my way of thinking so much.
“But now I know the real Scottish football.
“I have been watching a lot, following it a lot.
“But, same as the players, you need to taste it and feel it.
“You need to be on the touchline to ‘get it’, what it means.
“I am definitely more experienced now.”
Softness
Valakari’s summer signing strategy will take into account the physical demands of the Scottish game as he seeks to eradicate a McDiarmid Park “softness” that undermined their top-flight survival fight.
“That will feed into my recruitment,” he said.
“You saw we had footballers but maybe didn’t have that physical presence, especially towards the end of the season, when we were losing our big defenders.
“We were a very small team. I mean, just the physical size.”
Valakari added: “There were tactical tweaks and starting line-ups that I got wrong in some matches.
“Some in-game management could have been better on occasions as well.
“We remember the St Mirren game here when we were 2-1 up but lost 3-2.
“That was a game we needed to see out.
“But when I look back at the post-split spell of the season, we were too soft.
“We had worked hard to improve defensively and to become a more solid team.
“Then the injuries that we had at the back affected us.
“We were far too easy to score against.
“You could feel it on the touchline, the fans would have felt it and so would the players.
“There wasn’t a hardness to us that you need in these important games.
“It felt as if any attack the opposition had they could score.
“We hadn’t been like that.
“There are a lot of things I will reflect on and look to improve – that will include what we do to prepare for games.
“I’m hopeful that the new artificial surface will help us because we cannot waste training time.
“Unfortunately, that happened a lot during the winter last season.
“There were days when we couldn’t train anywhere.”
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