The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Saints head for their break on a positive point
St Mirren 0
St Johnstone 0
A0-0 draw against St Mirren isn’t a result worthy of putting the bunting out for double cup winners, but given the circumstances this was a perfectly acceptable way to go into an international break.
St Johnstone have their issues – they haven’t yet won in the league and have one goal to their name, which was an own goal – but the biggest of those is probably fatigue born of a relentless Thursday-Sunday schedule.
That Callum Davidson chose to make six changes to his team in Paisley was confirmation of the impact European football has had.
The transfer window will have closed by the time the Premiership gets going again and McDiarmid Park batteries will be recharged.
Saints had a couple of fraught moments in this match – and Zander Clark made a couple of stunning saves.
But when the attacking cavalry came on towards the end they looked the likelier winners, with Glenn Middleton hitting the crossbar in the last minute.
The habitual slowstarters will feel confident about moving up the table after the break. And their squad could well be stronger to try to do so.
The last time these teams faced each other in Paisley, Scott Tanser scored for Saints.
On this occasion he was denied a ninth-minute assist for St Mirren by an offside decision.
The Englishman, whose Perth contract ran out in the summer, landed an inswinging free-kick from the right on to the head of Conor McCarthy.
The defender glanced it beyond Clark, but the assistant referee raised his flag straight away.
It was a pretty even game in the opening stages – no surprise when you look at how closely matched the sides were last season – and Saints almost broke the deadlock on 16 minutes.
Jamie McCart, who has been the subject of three failed bids by Hibernian in this transfer window, slipped a pass through to Stevie May.
It would have only taken a slight touch from May to score, but he failed to get a toe to it.
At the other end, McCart was caught flat-footed when Jamie McGrath headed the ball over him and surged to the edge of the box before squaring to Curtis Main.
The former Aberdeen striker’s low shot was brilliantly saved by Clark, but he couldn’t hold on to it and needed McCart to be first on the scene to clear the loose ball on the sixyard line.
The ‘you have a chance, we have a chance’ theme continued with David Wotherspoon, back in the starting line-up for the first time since his coronavirus-related lay-off, picking out Callum Hendry with a cross to the near post.
The striker’s diving header was a good one, but the odds on it getting past Jak Alnwick from such a tight angle were against him.
Just after the 30-minute mark Saints half-cleared a Tanser corner, but when the ball came back in from the other side they were fortunate that Joe Shaughnessy missed the target with a free header.
After his red card misery on Thursday night, Wotherspoon would have been highly motivated to be the match-winner in this one and he came close to breaking the deadlock with a low 20-yard shot that Alnwick did well to get a hand to.
That save was nothing compared to a miraculous reflex stop Clark made in first-half stoppage time.
When a free-kick from the right found its way to the back post, Richard Tait appeared to have a simple task to finish it off.
Clark, deservedly called up by Scotland at long last, has produced many a wonder save in the last six months, but denying Tait from point-blank range may well have been the best of them. It really was quite something.
St Mirren started the second half strongly and opportunities for Saints to get up the pitch were becoming infrequent.
One presented itself to Hendry just short of the hour, but he made a poor decision trying to shoot when picking Rooney out on the overlap was the better option.
A few minutes later, Hendry was replaced by Middleton and not long after that it was a completely new forward line, with Chris Kane coming on for May.
On 78 minutes the first of those subs threw a leg out to meet a low Rooney cross, but his effort lacked the power to get past Alnwick.
Saints were starting to build momentum for the first time in the contest and after Middleton fired the ball across goal, it took a perfectly timed Ethan Erhahon intervention to deny Ali McCann a simple finish.
A strong run from Hayden Muller earned the visitors a last-minute freekick 20 yards from goal and Middleton, who scored from a similar position in last season’s Scottish Cup semi-final, rattled the face of the crossbar with his dipping strike.
With Saints pushing hard for a late winner, Erhahon was sent off for a foul on Kane, his second yellow-card offence.