Players showed they have heart after soft first half

St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari labelled his team “soft” at half-time but left Fir Park convinced they have the spirit needed to push up the table despite a 2-1 defeat to Motherwell.

Saints trailed to goals from Tawanda Maswanhise and Tom Sparrow at half-time as Motherwell showed a greater cutting edge despite the visitors enjoying the greater share of possession.

Nicky Clark pulled a goal back in the 58th minute following a VAR-assisted penalty award and Saints almost snatched a point but Jack Sanders had a stoppage-time goal disallowed for handball.

Although his side struggled to create clear-cut chances, Valakari believes the attitude will get them where they want to go.

“We did not deserve anything, not after the first half,” the former Motherwell midfielder said. “We were soft. A lot of things we have been talking about, we need to be competitive and stay in a match.

“But we put ourselves in too big a hole to climb out of – two goals down against a strong defensive side away from home. It wasn’t easy.

“The only thing I asked at half-time was that we show now what kind of team we are – these are the deciding 45 minutes to show what team we want to be.

“From that perspective, my players showed they have a heart, they have character and put everything into that second half to come back.”

Motherwell moved level on points with Rangers in the William Hill Premiership but manager Stuart Kettlewell knows they have plenty of room for improvement.

“We’ve probably found ourselves around about the position in the league and the number of points of teams that we’ve maybe no right to compete with,” he said.

“But we don’t see it that way. We’re always going to try and see if we can push those boundaries and fortunately at this point the players are absolutely doing that. But it’s all about that consistency and trying to continue that.

“But overall I think we’re seven points better off than we were last season, been in a national semi-final, a lot of turnover of players, a lot of senior players that would be very much in my thoughts still in the treatment room.

“We’ve given ourselves a decent foundation and I think we’ve shown that there’s a lot of progression.”

Kettlewell felt there was no doubt about the decision to disallow Sanders’ goal.

“It was almost a kind of volleyball, two arms. I’ve seen the slow motion of it there so it’s never going to be allowed in football,” he said.

However, he felt the penalty decision for handball against Andy Halliday should not have gone to VAR.

“We had a couple last season whereby we were told that it was such close proximity from the ball,” he said.

“Graham Carey, I played with him, he’s got an absolute wand of a left foot, he strikes the ball so well. Andy’s maybe two yards away from him when the ball strikes him, so I don’t think there’s a possibility of him trying to get out of the way. He tries to get his shoulder towards the ball.

“So I’m not going to sit here and critique and criticise what’s been given but I wouldn’t be surprised if at another point over the course of the season that it’s not.”