Craig Levein confident of survival as St Johnstone drop into play-off place

St Johnstone boss Craig Levein has faith that his side can maintain their cinch Premiership status, despite defeat to Aberdeen dropping them into the relegation play-off place.

Bojan Miovski’s second-half penalty was the difference between the sides and while the Dons are looking up the table, Saints are fighting for their lives.

Levein said: “We’ve played the two best teams in the bottom six so far and the next three games, if we win all three then we’ll be fine.

“We have a decent record against Ross County and Livingston, and I think we’ve drawn all our games against Motherwell. We need to roll our sleeves up and get back to work.

“The most important thing is that we keep trusting and believing in each other, and train well and put in a good performance next week.

“You need grit and determination, and confidence. You can get that back by winning one game, and I feel we’re looking at three winnable games.”

With Aberdeen’s interim boss Peter Leven absent having undergone an “emergency procedure” on Friday night, development coach Scott Anderson led the team against Saints and he maintained the Dons are focused on finishing as high up the table as possible.

Becoming the fourth man to take charge of the Pittodrie side this term, Anderson said: “Peter said when he took charge that he was looking to win as many games as we possibly could. That’s our focus, to finish as high as possible.

“We’ve got another clean sheet today and it’s fitting that Nicky Devlin won the penalty with his driving run – it’s credit to him that he’s still bombing up the park at that stage of the game, and that he’s part of a back four that’s kept another clean sheet.”