Simo Valakari is urging his struggling St Johnstone side to believe in their ability to pull off a shock result against Celtic on Sunday, reminding them: “Crazy things happen in football.”
The fixture pits the league leaders against the bottom club in the Scottish Premiership.
Brendan Rodgers’ men are edging closer to a third consecutive title triumph, while Saints are battling to preserve their top-flight status with just seven games remaining.
Currently five adrift of Dundee and trailing Celtic by a massive 52 points, St Johnstone know every point is vital.
They face Dundee United next Saturday before the league splits, followed by a Scottish Cup semi-final showdown with this weekend's visitors at Hampden Park.
Valakari acknowledges the enormity of the challenge but remains determined to keep his team’s survival hopes alive.
Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: “Games are getting fewer and fewer and every game is more and more important.
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“But we have put ourselves in this position and we need to get 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 a chance for those remaining five games.”
Fully aware of Celtic’s quality, both domestically and in Europe, Valakari highlighted their relentless nature. However, he insists his players must have belief.
“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.”
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To achieve a positive result against the reigning Premiership champions, Valakari has a clear vision of what his team must do.
“First of all, if and when we get our chance, we need to take it," he acknowledged.
“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.”
