Craig Levein reveals St Johnstone job motivation fuelled by Hearts low as new boss seeks redemption with Saints

Mad and crazy are just two of the adjectives Craig Levein throws out to describe the pressure pot of football management.

Some might reckon they both fit his decision to jump back into the fire with the Premiership’s bottom club St Johnstone after four years enjoying working on the outside as a pundit. It’s a bonkers world alright. In his last post as boss of Hearts Levein famously described “natural order” being restored in Edinburgh after a derby victory only to see the remark kick off an almighty capital war of words.

His response ahead of the next clash with Hibs? “It was a good laugh wasn’t it?” The problem for Levein - as he admitted at his McDiarmid Park unveiling yesterday - was that life juggling two jobs as boss and director of football had become anything but fun in the latter stages of his second reign at Tynecastle.

He was eventually sacked with the club second bottom of the table ironically after a 1-0 defeat in Perth. As the years passed and he got more and more comfy in his media gigs it began to look like his dug out days were over for good.

But the 59-year-old insists he never once thought he wouldn’t be back on the frontline. The management game at the top level might be a box of frogs. But Levein leapt at the chance to return with Saints.

Why? Because he doesn’t want a career that’s seen him manage Scotland, Dundee United, Leicester City and Hearts twice end on the low that was the latter stages of his time in Gorgie that brought fan protests before the sack.

Asked how he can be bothered, Levein said: “It’s in me somewhere. I wanted to go somewhere I feel I can make a difference. I want to work with good people. That was important to me. I’d been asked loads of times if I’d go back in and I said