St Johnstone missed out on the chance to move into third place in the SPL table last night, slumping to a dismal 2-0 defeat against Hearts at Tynecastle.
The Jambos put all their off-field problems to one side to take maximum points thanks to a first-half goal from Ryan Stevenson, with John Sutton securing the win late on.
However, it was on-loan Liverpool striker Michael Ngoo who was Saints’ tormentor-in-chief, running the defence ragged all night.
St Johnstone just could not cope with his and Sutton’s physical presence and Perth boss Steve Lomas didn’t pull his punches in his assessment of his side’s performance, saying it was possibly the worst since he took over as manager at McDiarmid Park.
He said: “We were second best all over the park. It was probably the first time we have not won any personal battles.
“So from our point of view it is a really disappointing night. We have let ourselves down, we have let down the fans who have come here tonight to support us.
“We explained to the boys that they should have been under no illusions what to expect here. We saw what Hearts did when they played Motherwell at the weekend, they went pretty much direct up top to big John Sutton and Ngoo every time.”
Lomas added: “They caused us problems but it wasn’t just them, Hearts caused problems all over the park.
“When you don’t win individual battles, you come unstuck and that’s what happened. We got outmuscled and outfought.
“We had a couple of half chances but credit to Hearts, their front two were excellent tonight and we just couldn’t cope.”
When asked if that was the most disappointing performance since he took over the club, he replied: “It is certainly up there.
“But we will have to take it on the chin and recover from it. We have another massive game on Saturday at home (against Kilmarnock).
“It is important that we got back to what we are good at.”
Hearts caretaker manager Gary Locke hailed his players. He said: “We showed everything required to get us out of this position we are in.
“There was great endeavour, work rate, we were first to every ball and I felt we were unlucky not to score more.”