‘No grey areas’: Simo Valakari calls on St Johnstone to secure survival

St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari has urged his players to fully embrace their style of football and the pressure as they bid to complete a great escape.

Saints have cut a 10-point gap at the bottom of the Premiership in half over the past three months but now need to complete the job in the next five matches.

Their post-split schedule begins at Motherwell, who they beat twice in January to reignite survival hopes and embark on a Scottish Cup run that took them to Hampden last weekend.

Quoted on the Saints website, Valakari said: “Now the last five games are here, it is very simple. We all know our situation – we need to win football matches.

“We are underdogs but, at the same time, it makes it clear for us. There are no grey areas. We need to go fully, play our football and be ourselves.

“We wanted to be in the position where we had something to play for when the split arrived. We are here, let’s go.”

The nature of the split means St Johnstone will not need to rely on others to move up the table if they string some wins together.

“Some people make estimations and calculations on how many points you need, but we don’t do these types of targets,” Valakari said.

“We need to go and perform. When we perform, we are likely to get a result. There will be twists and turns in these five games. I have said it many times, you need to enjoy these moments.

“Yes, the pressure is there, and you could call it negative pressure because we are playing to not get relegated. But you need to enjoy the pressure.

“We need to focus on our own. We can’t control what happens in other games. Let’s take care of our performance, then we can see what is happening.”