Callum Davidson wants new Canadian striker Theo Bair to get his claws into Premiership defences.
But the St Johnstone manager has to wait for paperwork being signed off before unleashing his six-figure recruit from Vancouver Whitecaps.
It has emerged that regular starter Chris Kane will be absent for weeks with a worrying knee injury.
Former Dundee United attacker Nadir Ciftci is still side-lined by a hamstring strain.
Now Davidson has revealed Bair, 22, will have to watch the Tayside derby clash with Dundee United from the stand.
👋📸| It was media duty time for some of our latest signings today too #SJFC #CrackASmile pic.twitter.com/xweCPqVIt4
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) February 2, 2022
“We are still waiting for international clearance for Theo but I have been really pleased with what I have seen since he came in,” said Davidson.
“I can’t wait to get him involved.
“We had a bounce game on Wednesday. He is a big, powerful athlete.
“Theo can run, he can hold it up and he scored a couple of goals. He was jet-lagged and just off the plane.
“Theo has been doing a pre-season with Vancouver and he will be involved with the first team whenever we get the clearance.
“Right now, we are concentrating on getting Theo’s fitness levels up to speed.
“We’ll be without Chris for the foreseeable future.
“He has hurt his knee and it’s swollen. It doesn’t look good at the moment.
“But we have managed to add two or three strikers to our squad.”
Midfielder Cammy MacPherson returns after Covid issues and skipper Liam Gordon is ready to face United after being substituted in the 2-1 midweek win over Livingston.
“Liam was sick at half-time,” revealed Davison.
“He wasn’t feeling great during the game so we took him off. But he is back to full health.”
Wingback Tom Sang is pressing for a derby debut after joining on loan from Cardiff City on deadline day.
“Tom came up the road on Tuesday after travelling for four or five hours in the car.
“I was going to put him on for 15 minutes but it was only fair to him to get a couple of training sessions under his belt.
“He is a wingback and with Shaun Rooney being out for a while we needed cover in there and someone to put pressure on James Brown. Tom is pushing for a game.”
Davidson admitted it’s no coincidence most of his January signings were six-foot plus.
“We did target powerfully built players,” he said.
“Given where we are in the league, I felt that physical strength as important.
“We lost out physically to teams on a couple of occasions which I wasn’t pleased about.
“We have added really good players to the squad.
“I’ll have to leave players out of the squad and that’s probably the first time I have been able to do that since coming here. That shows we have a strong squad.”
