Kerr calm despite shaky start to season for Saints
JASON KERR has insisted that there is no panic at St Johnstone despite an ignominious start to the season.
Tommy Wright’s side lost twice to League One opposition as they exited the BetFred Cup and there has been a palpable lack of depth to the McDiarmid Park squad. And Kerr believes that it is imperative that the Perthshire side need to move away from being such a soft touch.
“The manager said before we have turned into a nicey-nicey team who pass the ball about,” said Kerr. “We have signed the big Estonian, Madis Vihmann, who is 6ft 5in and he will give us a presence. We need to be a bit tougher and not be so nice.
“Looking at the results, it has not been great for us. It has been a bit of a disaster. But, as a squad we know how good we are. We have actually been playing good football without taking our chances.
“We know that we do have the quality and we are confident of turning it round. It looks bad when a Premiership club loses to two League One sides. But, I don’t think it is panic stations just yet.”
St Johnstone bring up the curtain on their league campaign at Celtic Park on Saturday afternoon with Kerr hoping that the lack of expectation on St Johnstone to take anything from the game can work in their favour.
“Every time you face Celtic you have to go for it,” he said. “The boys are confident we can get a result against them and I don’t think there is a better time to play them.
“I was part of the team when we drew 0-0 with them but mostly my experiences against them haven’t been good.
“We lost to them 6-0 at home which wasn’t great but that won’t happen again. There is never much expectation when we go to Celtic Park or Ibrox and that can sometimes help.”
A move for striker Stevie May fell through for Saints and it remains to be seen if something can be sorted before the closure of the window. Kerr admitted that he was gutted when news emerged at the weekend that the deal for the forward had collapsed at the last minute.
“I was buzzing when I saw on Twitter we were signing Stevie May,” he explained. “Then I read it had fallen through which was a bit disappointing. We just have to try and get over it.”