Contrasting seasons that no one at St Johnstone could have seen coming

McDiarmid Park dream scenario quickly turned into nightmare

It was fitting that Ali McCann and Jason Kerr were at McDiarmid Park to watch St Johnstone save their season.

For them, it must have felt like yesterday that the only club either had ever known up to the end of August 2021 was going toe to toe with Galatasaray and LASK.

And seeing the football played in the final 45 minutes against Inverness Caledonian Thistle would have left them wondering how on earth Saints had allowed things to come to such a dramatic, stressfilled conclusion.

However, for those who have endured the full, unimaginable 2021-22 slog, the departure of the two star players from Callum Davidson’s history making double-winners seems like a lifetime ago.

And when reviewing St Johnstone’s season, it’s the only place to start.

Deadline day implications

There are two, conflicting strands to what happened in the summer.

One is that Saints were in a much stronger position to attract players than all of the Premiership clubs they would consider rivals a year ago – Ross County, Motherwell, St Mirren, Livingston and Dundee.

Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee United could offer better wages, but if you were given the option of Saints, with their European competition and trophy winning pedigree, or any of the other five, it would be a no-brainer to get in a car to Perth.

The other, equally relevant aspect is that, even though they had built their reputation and financial foundations over a decade and more, the jeopardy of it only taking one bad window to tip the balance and put them back into the bottom-six pack with the threat of a relegation battle has been ever-present.

None were more aware of this knife-edge than previous manager Tommy Wright.

That bad window finally arrived last summer in the form of not having Premiership-ready replacements for Kerr and McCann signed up before they were allowed to leave.

Complacency – understandable to a degree given what had been achieved the season before – crept in and Davidson was let down.

Playing into that was perhaps an over-estimation by chairman, head of recruitment and manager of the capacity of the remaining players to maintain their cup double form.

The end result was too many loan players, most of whom just weren’t good enough, or more pertinently, not good enough for the circumstances Saints were soon to find themselves in.

By the time the January window opened, the squad needed gutted.

It is to Steve Brown’s credit that he reacted exactly as the situation demanded, his actions an implicit acknowledgement that mistakes had been made.

There has never been a January spend like it at St Johnstone.

That improvement followed is undeniable – Saints were effectively back to being a mid-table team with all the good and bad bits that go with that status.

Not all the signings produced bang for their buck, but enough of them did.

And in Tony Gallacher, John Mahon, Dan Cleary and Melker Hallberg, Davidson has four players under contract who will be starters when next season begins.

The transfer turnaround could well get close to double figures again over the next couple of months, but the good news is that if Saints get it right, with a new recruitment structure in place and finances still very healthy, their position as the most attractive of the provincial clubs could quickly be reclaimed.

Aberdeen and Hibs have gone backwards, while only Hearts have opened up a significant gap.

Cup double legends crocked

Every team ending up in a basement scrap has a story of woe to tell on this front. The St Johnstone of 2021-22 is no exception.

The first few months of the season can be a struggle to find rhythm at the best of times.

But by the end of November, with the international breaks at an end, Saints were nicely placed to hit their stride, as has often been their way down the years.

They lost narrowly to Celtic in their third semifinal in the calendar year, but played well.

Significantly, their most influential creative force, David Wotherspoon, looked close to his best.

The season-ending injury he sustained on the Hampden turf was arguably as destructive as the departure of McCann and Kerr.

Losing Chris Kane and Craig Bryson for the last few months of the campaign should also be mentioned, while Shaun Rooney was more out than in until spring as well.

John Beaton and friends We can officially say that

decisions do not even themselves out over the course of a season.

Cammy MacPherson not being sent off in the 0-0 draw with Hibs at Easter Road was a moment of good fortune, as was the penalty award for Callum Hendry against Livingston, but other than that it’s hard to think of a match when Saints benefited from a pivotal refereeing decision.

The penalties in Leith and Paisley against Jamie McCart, Teddy Jenks’ basketball winner for Aberdeen, the double infringement in the build-up to a Hearts equaliser and Hallberg’s red card against Dundee United were the lowlights.

And there were plenty of others.

Saints will do well if they even themselves out by the end of next season, because it got nowhere close in the one just concluded.

The darkest day

Given how poor Saints were at Dens Park at the start of December and how broken they appeared against Ross County at the end of that same month, it took something truly awful to delay the rock-bottom moment until the new year.

Although they had played worse in previous games, it was the extra-time meek acceptance of their fate, the absolute absence of a goal threat, the standard of the opposition, the fact they were the Scottish Cup holders, the history equalling losing streak total that was reached and the end of match gauntlet the players had to navigate that set losing to Kelty Hearts apart from the rest.

Only Davidson will know if he seriously contemplated walking away, but there was no hiding how deeply this result and experience affected him in the immediate aftermath.

There was still a week left in the transfer window and, again, his chairman chose the right option to keep spending and keep his faith in the man who had won a cup double.

For lesser clubs and lesser managers this would have been the seasondefining afternoon.

Davidson, St Johnstone – and, it must be said, their supporters – didn’t allow that to happen.

RELIEF: St Johnstone boss Callum Davidson and his players celebrating on the pitch after defeating Inverness Caledonian Thistle to secure their place in the Premiership.