St Johnstone win and Stevie May is the man of the match.
It’s becoming a common theme this season.
Kilmarnock were Saints’ and May’s latest victims at the weekend, thanks to an early deflected strike from the in-form Perth attacker.
Courier Sport picks out three talking points from the 1-0 McDiarmid Park victory.
Evening out at last
There was a lot of work to be done by Scotland’s officials to balance scales that were still heavily weighted against St Johnstone from the previous season.
And the red card for Murray Davidson on day one against Hibs, combined with the yellow for Marijan Cabraja didn’t assuage the feeling that refereeing injustices were continuing to haunt them.
Maybe it’s VAR, maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s just that the cliched ‘evening out’ process is belatedly kicking in.
Whatever the cause, Saints have at last got themselves a couple of game-defining borderline decisions falling in their favour.
For the James Brown red card that became a yellow, I don’t think it was worthy of an ordering off but it’s stretching ‘clear and obvious error’ to its extremes.
And, May hitting the turf at the near post had absolutely no impact on what was happening at the other side of the goal when Liam Donnelly was finishing from close range for the disallowed Kilmarnock equaliser.
Saints fans will tell you that it doesn’t happen often but good fortune on the refereeing front was certainly theirs on Saturday.
1-0 for St Johnstone
That’s a scoreline we haven’t seen enough of from a Perth perspective.
The repetition of it is the bedrock of any successful season in any league, whether that’s chasing titles, staying up or something in between.
Saints managed to do it nine times in the double-winning season.
Saturday was their first of the 2022/23 Premiership campaign.
Doing it with a last minute winner will give a team a bigger instant high, perhaps.
But scoring very early, soaking up pressure and claiming the clean-sheet and victory the hard way has a more lasting effect.
Andy Considine’s post-match comments touched on that very point.
Of all Saints’ five Premiership victories (it took them to nearly the end of February last season to hit that mark, it should be pointed out) there’s a footballing logic to suggest Saturday’s might have the most profound impact.
A quiet January?
It was with good reason Callum Davidson identified the efforts of his substitutes as crucial to seeing out this game.
Connor McLennan – unlucky to be benched after a largely encouraging first start at Easter Road, which included a match-winning cross – was astute with his hold-up play.
David Wotherspoon did a fine job for the team in a less eye-catching way than against Hibs, while Theo Bair picked up the pace of the game straight away near the end, got himself involved in eight duels, according to Opta, and generally made a bit of a nuisance of himself in a good way.
Corner flag incident pic.twitter.com/KdCs2pTs8q
— St. Johnstone FC News ✯✯ (@sjfcnews) October 29, 2022
The subs might not have turned the game as they did in the capital city victory but they undoubtedly contributed to it.
From Motherwell down, Saints arguably have the greatest depth to their squad.
It needs no explaining how important that may turn out to be.
John Mahon and Michael O’Halloran aren’t even getting on the bench these days and there are three long-term injured players still to return.
If things continue as they are, January is going to buck the trend of busy transfer windows at McDiarmid.
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