The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Saints need league win to cast off European hangover
St Johnstone are out of Europe and seeking their first league win of the season against St Mirren tomorrow.
And, with the transfer window not closing until Tuesday night, manager Callum Davidson has admitted “there will be an interesting four or five days to come”.
Eric Nicolson assesses the importance of a victory in Paisley, the likelihood of star players moving on and the areas of the Perth squad that should be strengthened.
THE NEXT MATCH
Despite the fixture list being a favourable one in the opening few weeks, Saints have had their traditional slow start to the league season.
Things will get harder after Sunday so they could really do with a win in Paisley.
Three points would see them tucked in the middle of the pack going into the international break and box off the European disappointment.
No side – even one that has just won two cups – wants to get into a habit of either losing or drawing tight games, which has happened in the first three fixtures.
There have been two decent to really good halves of football – the second 45 in Dingwall and the first against Motherwell – and the other four have been pretty average.
At the moment, setpieces remain the Perth side’s biggest opportunity of scoring goals and outfield creativity needs to improve. That was another physically challenging match on Thursday and tiredness has been a factor after each of Saints’ European matches.
And this time there will be the emotional drain of the Euro adventure coming to an end to throw into the mix.
I’d expect more changes to be made by Davidson for St Mirren than we saw against Dundee United.
We know how closely-matched these two sides were last year looking at their head-to-head results and the fact that it went down to goal difference to determine which of them made the top six.
Victory will ensure the Europa Conference League hangover only lasts a couple of days rather than a couple of weeks.
THE NEXT FEW DAYS
Even at the best of times this is an awkward weekend to play a game of football.
It’s the last match before the transfer window closes and Saints have a number of first team players who could have it in the back of their minds that they may be leaving.
Into that category you’d put Jason Kerr, Jamie McCart, Ali McCann, Shaun Rooney and Callum Hendry.
Rearranging that five into exit likelihood order I’d go for – McCart, Hendry, McCann, Rooney and Kerr.
McCart to Hibs is higher than a 50/50 chance of getting completed.
The Easter Road club haven’t significantly advanced their opening offer of around £200,000 but if they up it to £300,000, logic suggests they will get their man.
When Eetu Vertainen is granted a work permit (whenever that may be), Hendry will have the Finn, Chris Kane, Michael O’Halloran, Stevie May and Glenn Middleton ahead of him.
This feels like the age-old situation of a talented player needing a fresh challenge.
McCann may have looked like a man saying his goodbyes at the end of Thursday night’s match but I wouldn’t read too much into the long, slow walk around the pitch.
The Northern Ireland international is just a class act and it was a McDiarmid Park mutual appreciation society – supporters recognising the performances he had produced against Galatasaray and LASK and McCann letting it be shown the backing the players had received from four sides of the ground hadn’t been taken for granted. He has plenty of admirers, as you would expect, particularly in the English Championship, but no firm offers have yet been made by the likes of Hull City, Preston North End and Stoke City who regularly scout him.
As a rule, seven-figure transfers aren’t usually left to the last few days of a window but McCann’s agent is well connected in England and if there’s going to be a big late bid for a Saints player, it’s likely to be for the star man when dominoes start to fall down south.
When asked after the LASK game about the difficulty of keeping his squad intact, the first player to be name-checked by Davidson was McCann.
Rotherham United know what Saints want for Rooney but there has been no movement for weeks on that front and the lack of concrete bids for Kerr is as big a mystery as with McCann.
Ins? Much will depend on who – if anybody – goes, of course. Departures will need position-for-position replacements.
But even with numbers as they are, this squad is a couple light and given more than £1 million should be banked from the European campaign, addressing that wouldn’t appear unreasonable.
Vertainen’s arrival should totally change the dynamic of Saints’ forward line and, unless Hendry goes, Davidson will have six outand-out attackers.
That’s not including David Wotherspoon, who often plays wide in a front three. A versatile, creative, midfielder would be my end of window priority.