Saints now play Albion on Monday

Tommy Wright’s fears about resuming their league campaign under-cooked and facing a second half of the season fixture pile-up have come to pass.

The Perth’s club’s Scottish Cup fourth round clash with Albion Rovers was postponed for a second time.

The Cliftonhill pitch, which was covered in snow on Saturday, is now waterlogged and failed a 2pm pitch inspection yesterday.

A third date has been arranged for Monday, kick-off 7.45pm.

The news of the postponement will be a big disappointment to Saints boss Wright, who spoke on Monday about his concern going into a league game against Partick Thistle on Saturday with his opponents having played two matches since the winter break and his own side having played none.

By the weekend his team will have gone four weeks without competitive action.

New dates will have to be found for the Premiership matches against Kilmarnock (which should have been played tonight) and Hamilton Accies (next Wednesday).

With Saints already playing catch-up as a result of the rearranged fixture against Motherwell, that will mean four league midweek games to be played before the split.

Wright had said: “We don’t want a backlog of fixtures building up because we don’t know what the weather will be like over the next few weeks.

“Also, it is important to get a game under our belts before playing Partick Thistle on Saturday.

“It would be a concern if we went into that one without getting a game after the winter break. The likelihood is that they will have had two games.”