St Johnstone lack of basics made life easy for 'relentless' Celtic says Callum Davidson

Callum Davidson will try to look beyond his side’s thumping defeat to a Celtic team he branded relentless, and prepare his St Johnstone side for a battle for survival.

The gulf between the league leaders was vast at Celtic Park and while Davidson’s side will not come up against a team such as Ange Postecoglou’s in the bottom six, he will still seek improvements from his side when they return post-split to salvage their season.

“We knew the game would be really tough,” the visitors’ boss. “We’d drawn, had two wins and managed to get away from the bottom – we’re now 11th and teams are six points above us, Dundee five below us – we need to be ready for the split.

St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson at Celtic Park. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

“Ultimately our fight is for survival, it’s not games like this at a really tough place to come.

“Our real fight is survival and obviously after the split and a wee break we’ll be ready.

“We’re in good form, take away today’s game where we were beaten by a better team, simple as that. We have got to make sure we stay in the league.”

Davidson admitted his side couldn’t match the Premiership leaders, but made it too easy for Ange Postecoglou’s side to run up a devastating goal haul three in the first-half and four in the second.

“The disappointment was we didn’t do the basics well, we didn’t make it difficult for Celtic.

“We allowed too much time on the ball and didn’t match runners. If you do that you make it easy for them, but obviously Celtic were relentless, not just for 60 minutes but the full 90 today.”

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