4 St Johnstone talking points as need to find a new manager who can sort a defensive mess out is laid bare

It should have been a fillip for everybody – players, fans, caretaker boss, owner and even ex-manager.

Instead it turned out to be another sickening blow, which reaffirmed why St Johnstone are struggling in the Premiership, why supporters have lost faith, why the temporary boss is highly unlikely to take charge on a permanent basis, why Adam Webb decided to pull the trigger and why Craig Levein was working as a BBC pundit in Paisley rather than standing on the touchline in Dingwall.

Courier Sport picks out four talking points from Saints’ soul-destroying 3-3 draw with Ross County.

Defensive shortcomings

Of course, the 97th minute equaliser gets the headlines and was the subject of the post-match dressing room rage.

In a tight contest, the last goal scored and conceded is normally the most important.

But, in the cold light of day, all of County’s three were equally bad from a Perth perspective.

What are defensive fundamentals for good teams, even average teams, are defensive failings in this St Johnstone side.

For the first goal, it shouldn’t be entering Kyle Cameron’s mind to attempt an eye of the needle pass into midfield in the circumstances he found himself in.

For the second goal, the old ‘stop the cross’ shortcoming reared its head again.

Not putting any pressure on the man sending over a ball to the back post was poor but Drey Wright being left with two men to pick up was even worse.

Basic communication and organisation would have sorted that out.

Some not so subtle blocking was adopted by County to allow Akil Wright to get himself free for the equaliser.

However, it was obvious to everyone in the ground where that diagonal free-kick was going and Saints should have had the numbers around Wright to deal with it.

They were lucky to get away with a similar situation in the first half, nearly shot themselves in the foot when a high ball was launched down the middle after Drey Wright equalised, and were all over the place in the build-up to Ronan Hale dragging a shot past the post.

That’s six big moments of sub-standard defending.

Strip away the emotion of the late, late leveller and County scoring half of those six doesn’t feel like an unfair representation of how the game played out at the back for St Johnstone.

If it had been 3-3 in the second minute of stoppage-time rather than the seventh, I suspect Don Cowie’s men would actually have won this match.

The new manager

Webb and the McDiarmid Park decision-makers need to use what happened in Dingwall to inform their recruitment strategy for Levein’s replacement.

Even if Saints had won – and won well – Andy Kirk was highly unlikely to get the job.

He’s inextricably linked with Levein and a fresh page needs to be turned, to bring supporters with the new regime (owners and coaching staff) as much as anything else.

Even the ex-boss himself didn’t talk-up Kirk’s chances when he reflected on his sacking on BBC Sportsound.

Saturday’s match should have cemented the priorities when it comes to whittling the candidates down to a shortlist and then interviewing them.

This is not the time for a ‘project manager’ in whatever guise he presents himself.

The risk is too great and the wait until January too long.

Staying in the Premiership provides the platform for everything else.

Webb and his co-owners are in this for the long haul but there’s no reason they can’t have the best of both worlds – staying up and establishing a new identity.

The staying up bit is the horse and the identity bit the cart.

That needs to underline everything that happens in the new head coach process next week.

The two most important questions that needs to be answered (and backed up with evidence) are –

How do you go about making this team more robust and resilient in general and harder to score against from set-pieces?

And, which goalkeeper, which centre-half and which left-back will you sign over the next couple of weeks?

That’s the substance. Everything else is fluff.

The free-kicks

I hope Leigh Griffiths sent Nicky Clark a message on Saturday night.

The stakes might not have been as high in the Highlands as they were at Hampden all those years ago but the anger and anguish Clark was feeling after scoring two stunning free-kicks, only to see his team collapse at the back, was written all over his face.

The second, in particular, was magnificent.

At least the two goals weren’t meaningless – they put a point on the board, stopped the rot and stopped a rival opening up a gap.

And they will hopefully reignite a player who will be crucial to the Perth cause over the next few months.

But it’s a crying shame that the news line of the day wasn’t Clark scoring another double in a win for a caretaker boss, as he did for Alex Cleland against Kilmarnock last season.

He deserved to bask in the glory not reflect on another defensive calamity.

The opposition

Let’s face it, if St Johnstone are going to stay in the Premiership, they’ll likely have to finish above Ross County.

Despite the fact Hearts and Kilmarnock are the current bottom two, it won’t end that way.

In the bigger picture, being better than County over the course of the campaign is Saints’ primary goal.

Talking before the game, home fans in front of the press seats spoke of a team improving week on week.

A few of those same fans left the ground after Clark’s second free-kick hit the back of the net (utter folly, given Saints’ capacity to self-harm), so they clearly will need a bit more evidence to be convinced.

I didn’t see much difference between the County of last season and this – they still have powerful centre-halves and tidy midfielders.

It’s unlikely any of the creative players will hit Yan Dhanda levels of match-impact or that Hale will match Simon Murray’s goal-scoring numbers.

They’re a better overall team than Saints just now but I’d still like to think that won’t be the story over a full campaign.

And, if the new McDiarmid manager can make his mark quickly, it might not even be the story by the time the teams next meet in less than a month.