Delight for Davidson as May shows his striker’s instinct to seal victory

St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson was happy to see Stevie May weigh in with a typical striker’ s goal after the substitute proved to be the match-winner against St Mirren.

May, pictured in set, has yet to start a game under Davidson but he showed good instincts to get on the end of Craig Conway’s cross within five minutes of replacing Michael O’halloran as St Johnstone were eventually rewarded for a dominant display.

After a prolific early career with Alloa Athletic, Hamilton Accies and Saints, May’s goals dried up somewhat on his travels. His 27-goal tally in the Scottish Cup-winning campaign of 2013-14 is more than he managed in the subsequent six seasons combined, at Sheffield Wednesday, Preston, Aberdeen and then back at Saints last term.

But the 27-year-old offered former assistant boss Davidson a reminder of his ability to notch simple goals as well as the spectacular efforts he regularly pro - duced in his first Perth spell.

Davidson said:

“Getting S te vie back scoring goals is great, Mikey had played well but we needed a goal. And Stevie came on to get it for us, I’m really pleased for him.

“When he was here before he used to score them from 30 yards so I’m happy it was a tap-in this time.”

St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin admitted his side were “extremely poor” in the first half and they did not produce an effort at goal until almost 80 minutes in.

The suspension of centreback Joe Shaughnessy led to Goodwin deploying a back three but his players struggled and a series of personnel and tactical changes failed to have any significant effect. Goodwin said: “We know we can do better. We have to do the basics better, simple as that.

“I don’ t think there’ s a big difference between eight teams in this league. Celtic and R angers are out on their own. Aberdeen and Hibs are probably ahead of the rest of us in terms of squad depth and quality of players they have available.

“The other eight are capable of beating each other on any given day. But if you don’t do the basics right then you give yourselves problems and we certainly did that.”