Silence of the fans stopped us making it a late thriller
REMI MATTHEWS reckons the silence of the fans hurt St Johnstone’s chances of taking Rangers’ Scottish Cup scalp.
The furious Saints support boycotted the fourth-round showdown in protest at the decision to allow the Ibrox faithful to take up three stands at McDiarmid.
It meant there were barely 400 inside the ground cheering on Callum Davidson’s side, the lowest home support at the new ground that has been their base since 1989.
And keeper Matthews said: “We probably missed the fans in the last 10, 15 minutes to give us that push.
“But whatever has happened has happened and we need to put that to bed.
“Hopefully we can give the fans a bit more to be happy about. We need them there at Ibrox on Saturday and we can’t wait to see them.”
St Johnstone head to Glasgow for the second leg of their Gers double-header desperate for a result. Davidson’s men have now lost six games on the spin and are in danger of being sucked into the relegation battle at the bottom of the Premiership.
But Matthews is refusing to look down after his side put in an improved performance against Michael Beale’s men.
He said: “From the start of the season, you win two games you find yourself fourth, you lose two games you find yourself back down there.
“The league is so tight. Other than Celtic, Hearts and Rangers, it’s all so tight.
“We’ve always given most teams a good game. Look, the last couple of weeks haven’t been good enough but we know that as a team and a club.
“We can only go on what we’ve done on Saturday.
“The gaffer did a lot of work building into that game and it sets the standard where we know what we’ve got to do.
“We showed that out on the pitch again. We gave them a good game from start to finish.
“We’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again at Ibrox.”