'Crazy things happen in football': Simo Valakari hoping St Johnstone stun Celtic

Simo Valakari hopes his struggling St Johnstone side can secure a positive result against Celtic on Sunday, insisting: “Crazy things happen in football.”

It is top versus bottom in the William Hill Premiership, with Brendan Rodgers’ side seemingly on their way to another title while their hosts are fighting for survival with seven fixtures remaining.

Saints are five points behind second-bottom Dundee and 52 behind the league leaders.

The Perth men will face Dundee United the following Saturday before the split and then they face the Hoops in the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden Park.

Boss Valakari is hoping to keep an escape route open this weekend and he told Sky Sports Scotland: “Games are getting fewer and fewer and every game is more and more important.

“But we have put ourselves in this position and we need to get our ourselves out of this position and basically, for us now, we need to get something out of these two games before the split, to hang in there, to give us chance for those remaining five games.

“Football is crazy. Yes, we know Celtic and how well they have been playing, domestically, in Europe, their quality, and what I like about them is that they’re so ruthless.

“They just keep going, keep going and for us, it’s a big challenge, but at the same time we need to go.

“Crazy things happen in football and we need to go believing in ourselves and what’s believing in ourselves?

“We can talk about the belief, we can talk about the confidence but the confidence comes through work-rate, that we know what’s happening when we don’t have the ball, we know what’s happening when we have the ball and just executing, action by action, minute by minute, and then maybe, maybe we give ourselves a chance.”

Valakari outlined what he believes needs to happen if his charges are to take anything from the game at McDiarmid Park.

He said: “First of all, if and when we get our chance, we need to take it.

“We need to take it to put a little doubt in their head and then the second biggest thing is, yeah, we can try to stay in a match for 15 minutes, for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, but you can’t switch off for one moment with them.

“The ball goes out of play, boom, they play so quickly. We attack, they get the goal-kick, they play so quickly.

“So the biggest thing is that you can’t switch off, you need to be at your best every moment and, of course, we need to defend some moments.

“We need we know that our goalkeeper will more likely need to make some saves, know that our defenders needs to block some shots, but at the same time, as I said, when we get our chance, we need to take it to make them think as well.”