St Johnstone’s Jason Holt reflects on ‘challenging’ year after second relegation

St Johnstone midfielder Jason Holt admitted he has endured a demoralising couple of years after suffering relegation from the Premiership in consecutive seasons.

The 32-year-old joined Saints last summer after being part of the Livingston team that slipped into the Championship 12 months ago, and now he is licking his wounds once more after the Perth side learned on Wednesday that they had suffered the same fate.

“It’s hard because as a player, you don’t want any relegations on your CV,” said Holt. “Unfortunately, I’ve been on the end of two. I think throughout your career there’s going to be bumps in the road, there’s going to be ups and downs.

“Certainly the last two years have been difficult because you’re not winning a lot of football matches. You try not to, but you take that home with you and it affects everything.

“It’s been challenging at times, but that’s the life of a football player. There are bumps along the road. Unfortunately, I’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of bad ones.”

Saints, who were nine points adrift in January, lost 2-1 at Hearts on Wednesday but it looked like they were going to take their survival fight to the final day, only for Ross County’s last-gasp equaliser at Dundee to consign them to the Championship.

“At Livingston, we were relegated maybe three or four weeks before the end of the season,” said Holt.

“This year it was different because at one point it looked like we were gone, then we had a wee string of results which pulled us back into it and kept it competitive. Ultimately we’ve tried to take it as far as we could and we fell short.

“We’re really disappointed and gutted but, overall, we’ve clearly not been good enough.”

Saints owner Adam Webb confirmed on Thursday that they will keep faith with manager Simo Valakari but Holt, who remains under contract for next term, is braced for a likely squad overhaul.

“Naturally, I think if a club goes down, there’s probably a bit of a rebuild,” he said. “I don’t know what that looks like, but I’m sure the club will have decisions to make over the summer.

“I think we’re going to probably be one of the favourites (for the Championship) so there comes a different pressure in winning games every week.

“The group that’s here next year will need to take that on board and deal with it.

“It certainly won’t be easy, but the boys that are here and the players that come into the building will need to take that pressure on board.”