The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
From Miami Beach to McDiarmid Park
He only has a spinning bike in his hotel room for company while he sees out his period of quarantine isolation.
But new St Johnstone signing Guy Me l a m e d has already struck up a friendship that has more to do with Miami Beach than McDiarmid Park.
It has to go down as one of the more bizarre football connections but at least the Israeli striker will see a couple of familiar faces when he is eventually allowed into the Saints dressing room.
A game of head tennis with Liam Gordon and Callum He n d r y under the Florida sun has seen to that.
“Obviously none of us have been able to meet Guy yet or speak to him because he’s got to spend time isolating before he can come in for training,” said captain Jason Kerr.
“But I think Liam Gordon and Callum Hendry know him already because they met him on holiday last summer.
“They were in Miami last year and they have said they think they we r e playing head tennis with him. It’s a bit of a weird one all right!
“I’m sure he will enjoy having a couple of friendly faces when he’s allowed to come in.
“We will make him feel welcome, get him involved in the group and hopefully he can score goals for us.”
He n d r y and Go r d o n can’t speak to how lethal Melamed will be in the penalty boxes of the SPFL but if his YouTube highlights are anything to go by, Saints have got themselves a clinical finisher.
“I’ve had a look at the videos the club put up about him and he scores all kinds of goals,” said Kerr.
“He scores inside the box, outside the box, free kicks and headers – so he’s definitely the kind of player we have been needing.
“Hopefully he comes in, settles in quickly and scores plenty of goals for us.”
It was Kerr who ended the Perth goal drought that had lasted more than 400 minutes when he headed home a Craig Conway corner at Kelty Wednesday night.
“It was obviously good to get the first one,” he said.
“It was a relief when I scored it and it gave us confidence going into the second half.
“I’m relieved to get a goal because I have had a lot of chances this season and even the other night I’d had a few before I scored.
“I could have had a hattrick. I hit the bar with another one and wasn’t far away with a few others.
“Hopefully I can take that in to the rest of the season not because we need goals from right across the team.”
Saints face Brechin City next tomorrow and Kerr is determined that there will be no regression at McDiarmid against the League Two side.
He added: “We haven’t scored a lot of goals this season so it was important to get a couple the other night.
“Everyone can see that in our games this season we h av e created a lot of chances but things just haven’t been falling for us on in the box. So getting two goals is go o d for the confidence. Hopefully that means we can kick on now.”
Arguab ly more significant than the first Saints goal will be the second. Manager Callum Davidson needs his forwards to be sharp and confident when the Premiership campaign resumes and midweek was an encouraging indicator those descriptions will apply to Chris Kane.
“We dominated Kelty in the second half and everyone was delighted to see Kano get a goal too,” said Kerr.
“I was one of the first to congratulate him after it because he’s been out injured this season so he’ll be delighted to get off the mark.
“We have strikers who can score goals.
“Stevie May has a history of scoring, Callum Hendry did it for us last season and Kano is back with a goal now too.
“The gaffer has brought in a new striker as well so there is a lot of competition there now.”