ALI KNOWS TO PLAY IT COOL Midfield kid won’t let rave reports affect him
Ali McCann will not let the growing noise surrounding his impressive performances throw him off course.
The young St Johnstone star went toe-to-toe with Celtic’s midfield in Sunday afternoon’s harsh 1-0 Scottish Cup quarter-final defeat.
McCann (20), who recently penned a new three-and-a-half year deal at Saints, must surely be on the radar of numerous clubs across the country.
But the Northern Ireland under-21 talent insists the focus is purely on continuing to shine for the Perth club. Calls for him to move up to the senior international side may be around the corner but McCann said: “It’s up to them to decide.
“I just do what I’m told. There’s a break coming up in a month’s time and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
“I’ve just got to keep my head down. There’s plenty of games between now and the end of the season to get looking up towards the top six.
“Hopefully we can catch the teams above us, which is
ST JOHNSTONE
a realistic goal. If we keep playing the way we did on Sunday, we’ll put pressure on them.
“Since we’ve come back from the winter break we’ve been in good form. Everyone has been chipping in and performing well.”
Saints could count themselves massively unfortunate not to force a replay at a muddy McDiarmid Park at the weekend.
“Throughout the whole game we matched them up,” said McCann. “At the time they scored, I felt we were dominating.
“It’s gutting to lose a goal in that manner, especially considering how well we did against the best team in the country.
“It is just gutting to lose in that fashion. We had chances to go ahead in the game and then even had chances afterwards to equalise. “It was unfortunate but I thought we were brilliant throughout.
“We were picking up second balls, moving it well and had them on the ropes for a wee while.
“We never managed to capitalise with a clear-cut chance and they score a poor goal from our perspective.”
Perth players return to league action tomorrow evening for a fixture against St Mirren at the
Simple Digital Arena.
“We have to keep building and have two massive games, on Wednesday at St Mirren then Livingston on Saturday,” said McCann.
“We need to play with the same intensity and put pressure on them. Hopefully we can turn pressure into goals and come away with positive results.
“St Mirren are always a tough team to play against and we’ve not had the best of results against them this season. It’s never an easy place to go.
“But if we pass the ball as well as we did on Sunday then we can come away with a result.”
McCann may well be thrown back in alongside recent loan signing Matt Butcher, who has impressed in his last two starts.
“I like playing alongside Matt,” McCann said. “He is composed and is a really good passer of the ball.
“And he also likes doing the dirty work, which you need to do in games like Sunday. He is always on for a pass which helps massively.”
Bournemouth midfielder Butcher is loving being back involved on a weekly basis and was gutted with the Celtic result.
“Once the soreness of this settles down we will reflect on it and see we went toe-to-toe with the best team in the country,” he said.