The size of his first-team squad – the smallest in the Premiership – has been a factor at play for Callum Davidson from day one of this season.
But maybe at last, 30 games into this coronavirus-impacted campaign, he can remove himself from the ragged edge.
The St Johnstone manager has always accentuated the benefits of working with a tight group of players, every one of whom is motivated by a realistic chance of game-time on any given week.
But it is one of football’s enduring and inescapable truisms that there is more often than not a correlation between the strength of a bench and the success of the starting eleven.
Callum Davidson’s St Johnstone options
And on that front, Wednesday night’s game against Aberdeen was an encouraging benchmark.
It has taken until 30 matches into the season for there to be an available senior pro left out of Davidson’s match day squad.
That unlucky man was Callum Hendry.
This isn’t a criticism of a young striker who still has the potential to develop into a Premiership regular for Saints again but it’s a precarious position for a manager if every fit and suspension-free first team player is near enough guaranteed to be part of his match day 20.
A breakdown of the number of substitutes Davidson has been able to name in 2020/21 shines a light on his restricted options.
Saints have played 30 games and only for 12 of those has his bench had the full nine substitutes.
It was one light (eight players) on nine occasions, two down (seven) on seven and three down (six) twice.
The compare and contrast between the first time Saints faced Aberdeen and this week’s clash with the Dons is stark.
The potential replacements in August read – Ross Sinclair, Shaun Rooney, Wallace Duffy, Craig Conway, Cammy Ballantyne, Isaac Olaofe and John Robertson.
Out of those seven, there were five players soon to be moved on or loaned out and only two you would class as genuine first team contenders.
There was no padding out required in midweek, however, when the substitutes were Elliott Parish, James Brown, Callum Booth, David Wotherspoon, Ali McCann, Liam Craig, Stevie May, Glenn Middleton and Guy Melamed.
Every conceivable injury-related or tactical change, protecting a lead or chasing an equaliser, could have been made with a proven and experienced player in that group of nine men.
‘Looking at the bench, it’s strong now’
At a time when Davidson needs his players to be highly incentivised to keep hold of a starting place, with a cup final looming large and Premiership status to be secured, the head coach has both carrot and stick available to him should he choose to use them.
This is a position of new-found strength and there are no doubts in the McDiarmid Park dressing room that performance levels need to be maintained otherwise a spell out of the starting line-up could be a prolonged one.
Scott Tanser said: “Getting to a cup final has given everyone something to look forward to.
“We’ll all want to perform as well as we can, not just because a cup final is on the way. Players need to be doing well to make it hard to move them.
“Those on the bench will be pushing for starts. Looking at the bench, it’s strong now.”
Tanser’s attacking and creative impact has waned somewhat. He only had three touches close to the Aberdeen box on Wednesday evening compared to double that amount in the first game against the Dons.
And it’s also apparent looking at his two Opta touch maps that he is now doing more work in-field than back then.
Saints as a unit, though, have a more rigid and cohesive structure to them, the proof being three clean-sheets in succession since the 2-2 draw at Tannadice.
It was an improvement that the defenders knew they had to make, according to Tanser.
“As a team we defended really well on Wednesday,” said the Englishman, who is out of contract in the summer and was scouted by Mansfield boss Nigel Clough.
“We limited them mainly to set-pieces and they didn’t get many shots away.
“We were compact. You always start off with the aim of keeping a clean sheet and that’s three in a row.
Defensive strength
“We’ll look to add to that at Kilmarnock and get a few goals, more points and start moving up the table.
“You are guaranteed points if you keep a clean-sheet.
“We were conceding silly goals previously but we’ve clamped down on that. We’re getting rewarded for our performances now.”
It’s no coincidence that this impressive defensive trend has occurred with Jason Kerr back in the team after a month out.
Kerr led the charts in five key Opta categories for Saints – touches, clearances, interceptions, possession gained and duels won.
“It’s been good to have Jason back,” said Tanser. “In the backline you need that leader and the captain of the team.”
Saints have enjoyed far better afternoons and nights as far as their passing game is concerned and that will be the obvious area for improvement at Kilmarnock on Saturday, when there will be an opportunity to move up at least one place in the Premiership table.
But the draw against third-placed Aberdeen wasn’t the anti-climax after their Hampden heroics that the players maybe felt it was when the final whistle blew.
“I don’t think it was our best first half,” said Tanser. “Usually our press is really good but we didn’t get it right.
Half-time team talk boost
“Second half, after the manager had a word with us, I thought we were much better.
“We’re disappointed but will take the point.
“There is a buzz around the place and we know how well we played, mainly in the second half, of the cup semi-final.
“You always need to be ready for a midweek game after playing on the Saturday as a professional footballer but you could say a few legs were tired.
“The draw is maybe a better result than we first thought.”
