Steven MacLean has taken to management “like a duck to water” according to St Johnstone captain Liam Gordon.
Gordon’s former team-mate and the assistant boss in the double-winning season has been tasked with keeping Saints in the Premiership following Callum Davidson’s McDiarmid Park departure.
And the Perth centre-back believes his hometown club are in safe hands.
“He’s been brilliant,” said Gordon. “I have no negatives to say. He’s taken to it like a duck to water in my opinion.
“He’s got the boys on board straight away. Everyone is right into it, everyone is on the same page.
“By doing that on the training pitch it’s only going to help us.
“Everything was constructive but it was just because of his knowledge of the game, the way he used to play, coming in and showing different ideas.
“That’s something that’s been very good for us. The boys have enjoyed it.
“We’re ready to give him everything. All the boys are playing for him and looking forward to playing under him for the rest of the season.
“The same goes for Liam Craig and Alex Cleland.
“So he’s got a good coaching staff behind him doing their part.
“Hopefully we can build on their work and have a strong finish to the season.”
For that to happen, on-pitch match-winners will need to emerge, as Callum Hendry did this time last year.
“Exactly, this is when you need to stand up and be counted,” said Gordon.
“Callum was obviously massive at this stage of the season last year but we’ve enough good players out there who I know can go and replicate what he did.
“Whether that’s strikers, midfielders or one of us defenders scoring goals and producing big moments.
“Because that’s what it will come down to.”
Different to this time last year
There’s a favourable mood in the Saints camp contrast to be drawn when Gordon reflects on his experience of 12 months ago, going into the post-split fixtures on the back of a 7-0 thrashing from Celtic.
“It’s a different vibe to that,” he pointed out. “The morale is different.
“We’ve got a lot of people here who digging in and we’ve got good characters in the team, which is going to help us massively in this situation.
“Listen, the league has been really competitive with a lot of strong teams in there.
“It was always going to be really tight. We’re obviously disappointed that we had an opportunity to kick on and get top six but didn’t make that happen.
“We’ve since put our sole focus into remaining in this league, as it is at the start of every season at St Johnstone.
“Everything else is a bonus.”
🕒 2️⃣ day to go
A message from the Captain 👊
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) May 4, 2023
Gordon added: “A win could take us closer to safety. It’s a great game for us to start with after the split.
“Three points for us is three points we take away from whoever we play so these are six-pointers.
“Dundee United are coming into the game in really good form. Obviously, under our new regime, we are looking at the positives as well.
“Coming off the last good performance, we’ve got a good home crowd behind us going into the game. We are really looking forward to it.”
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