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St Johnstone grabbed a glimmer of hope with a late brace to beat Motherwell 2-1.
Motherwell looked set to avenge last week’s Scottish Cup defeat when they took the lead through Andy Halliday’s penalty in the fourth minute.
But bottom-placed Saints turned the game around in a dramatic finish, with substitute Tyler Steven equalizing in the 86th minute and Bozo Mikulic scoring the winner two minutes later.
As a result, Saints are seven points behind second-bottom Kilmarnock, who were beaten 3-2 at Hearts.
What managers say…
st johnstone manager Seamus Valakari: “Everyone could see the fight was there. What they did told me everything about them, the team was very united.
“This is the only way we can give ourselves a chance of survival, everyone has to stick together.
“There’s a lot of talk in football about momentum and when you have momentum the ball starts bouncing for you and things start falling for you. But you have to do all the right things to achieve that.
“We’ve never been able to capitalize on positive moments to build momentum so far this season.
“So to come back and win the game the way we did, that’s probably huge.
“It wasn’t luck, it was just the kids pushing and getting one goal and then another.”
St Johnstone’s Bozo Mikulic celebrates a goal to make it 2-1
motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell: “We are completely closed; don’t stand strong in our own penalty area.
“Ultimately, to me, that’s the question we need to ask about mental strength, the mental ability to be able to stand strong.
“I didn’t think we did a good job in the second half. Once you start going down, you start admitting the pressure, you start admitting the territory.
“You have to show more determination to defend your penalty area. We didn’t do that at all – and that’s the end result.”
