Holt eager to avoid successive relegations

Jason Holt hopes the lessons he learned from Livingston’s doomed relegation fight last season can help St Johnstone’s survival bid.

With 15 games remaining the Perth side have a nine-point deficit on second-bottom Hearts and haven’t won in nine league games.

As he looked ahead to Saturday’s visit of Motherwell, midfielder Holt said: “We need to try and nip it in the bud because the longer it goes on, like I found last year, the more difficult it becomes to get out of the situation you’re in.

“It can definitely start to weigh you down the longer it goes on.

“We need to make sure it doesn’t go on as long as I experienced last year because ultimately it won’t end well.

“We’re in control of that, we’ve still got time on our side but we need to make sure we act quick.”

Holt, 31, wants Saints to use last weekend’s Scottish Cup fourth-round win over Motherwell as the catalyst for a positive run.

“The cup game gives us a platform,” he added. “It’s one win in the cup, we’re not getting carried away, but if we can take the positives from that and take it to this weekend, hopefully we can start building a bit of momentum which will help us climb up the league.”