No May renaissance yet for Saints as Kilmarnock send them to bottom of pile
IT was not the homecoming Stevie May had dreamed about but at least the return of St Johnstone’s local hero eased the pain of defeat for the fans just a little.
Stephen O’Donnell’s first-half strike consigned Saints to bottom spot in the Premiership on the back of a winless four-match run since the league campaign began a month ago.
More worrying even than the result for manager Tommy Wright is the fact that he is at a loss to fathom exactly why his players are struggling to turn it on at home.
But with 26-year-old May back after five years on the road at Sheffield Wednesday, Preston and Aberdeen there is a chink of light at the end of the tunnel.
May — signed from the Dons 48 hours earlier after having the remainder of his two-year contract at Pittodrie cancelled — was sent on in the 67th minute in place of Liam Craig.
But he was unable to work any magic to conjure up at least a point for struggling Saints after Wright had resisted the temptation to include him in his starting XI due to a slight groin injury.
Although O’Donnell took the plaudits for Killie’s first Premiership win, Juventus loanee Dario Del Fabro might easily have scored on his debut.
But the powerfully built central defender missed the target with his header from Rory McKenzie’s free-kick.
St Johnstone thought they had scored when Michael O’Halloran bravely led with his head when challenging Laurentiu Branescu for a hanging Wallace Duffy cross and beat the goalkeeper to the ball.
But he was denied by an offside decision which was hotly disputed by his manager after the match.
The home side’s frustration was compounded when Kilmarnock, having enjoyed much of the possession, punished St Johnstone on the break five minutes from half-time.
Liam Millar and O’Donnell quickly switched defence into attack after Scott Tanser’s free-kick had broken to the latter, who completed a 70-yard run before putting Liam Gordon under pressure.
Gordon was unable to execute a clearance and O’Donnell, from no more than six yards, went unchallenged before hitting the ball into the bottom right corner of the net.
O’Halloran and Ali McCann had chances to salvage a point, but neither succeeded in even testing Branescu.
Murray Davidson also had a fairly tame header easily saved before substitute Dominic Thomas forced Zander Clark to parry his stinging shot from the edge of the 18-yard box to deny the Ayrshire side a second.
A frustrated Wright confessed: ‘I’m at a loss to explain how we can go from playing like we did against Hibs at Easter Road last week to this against Kilmarnock.
‘I don’t know what it is at home, whether it’s nerves, but we didn’t start well and the winning goal summed up our play.
‘We got done by a counter-attack goal from our free-kick and a number of mistakes in the lead-up to it were totally preventable.
‘But we were a bit unlucky as Liam Gordon’s clearance cannoned off Wallace Duffy into O’Donnell’s path.
‘And the disallowed goal was not offside and should never have been chalked off.
‘To compound it, the officials told us that it was Duffy who was offside and that was never the case.
‘It wasn’t the referee’s fault, it’s his assistant’s for chopping off what was a perfectly good goal. It was a poor decision.’
Kilmarnock counterpart Angelo Alessio was keen to praise his players for their commitment, adding that the win was just reward for their efforts.
But the Italian was less keen to discuss defender Greg Taylor’s situation with regard to the likelihood of him signing for Celtic after he was left out of the Killie line-up for this one.
He stated: ‘I have nothing to say on Greg Taylor joining Celtic. We will see what transpires in the next day or so.
‘At the moment I cannot say anything and I do not want to speak about players while the transfer window and the market is open.
‘I want to speak about our performance only and it’s important to focus on that.
‘It is good to win for the mood of the team and it has lifted everybody at the club, especially me.
‘It has been a difficult two months and both the players and the supporters deserve this result.
‘We were compact and strong and scored a fine goal after a great counter-attack.’