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ERIC NICOLSON: No St Johnstone POTY awards for Adam Montgomery but he may well have a Celtic future (hopefully after one more year in Perth)

The on-loan left-sided defender has been a Perth first team regular and one of their best ever temporary recruits.

Adam Montgomery did very well for St Johnstone.
Adam Montgomery did very well for St Johnstone. Image: SNS.

Far be it for me to take issue with supporter opinion.

Especially on something as subjective as who they think has been the best player for their football team over the course of a season.

St Johnstone player of the year?

I’d probably have arrived at the same conclusion that, given their consistency and the importance of their goals, Drey Wright and Stevie May thoroughly deserve to divvy up the main awards between them.

Without their contributions (chiefly, goals) the Perth club’s Premiership predicament would be a whole lot worse than it currently is.

But the absence of one name in particular from a list of 16 prizes doesn’t feel quite right.

Adam Montgomery.

Adam Montgomery.
Adam Montgomery. Image: SNS.

There’s actually a case to be made that he has been the best Perth loan player over the course of a season since Saints returned to the top flight a decade-and-a-half ago.

Hear me out.

Half-season success stories far more common

Go through all those who have left the biggest mark at McDiarmid Park and the vast majority have done so over short bursts, rather than a full campaign.

Lee Croft in 2011/12.

Mehdi Abeid the following year.

James Dunne helped change the course of history but only after Murray Davidson was ruled out of the 2014 Scottish Cup-winning season with a serious injury.

Danny Swanson’s first spell was a mid-term loan.

Matt Butcher was very impressive in his all too brief time with Saints.

And it will forever remain a bizarre quirk of the double season that Danny McNamara was the best player in the first half of it, only for Callum Davidson’s side to truly click and then lift two trophies after he returned to Millwall.

Danny McNamara was a huge success with Saints.
Danny McNamara was a huge success with Saints. Image: SNS

It’s not easy to be a virtual ever-present and a high-standard one when you’re a loan player recruited for a whole campaign.

Just look at the deals cut short in Davidson’s second year in charge.

Brian Graham is arguably Montgomery’s closest rival for the crown.

Ten goals in 29 appearances was very impressive stuff.

Graham was definitely one who got away when, in the summer of 2016, it was Ross County rather than Saints who snapped up the centre-forward still going strong with Partick Thistle at 35.

All-round game

There are several factors that make Montgomery’s season with Saints so impressive.

Firstly, there’s his age and inexperience.

He hadn’t even celebrated his 20th birthday when making his debut in the League Cup.

And four starts with Aberdeen the previous season wouldn’t normally be enough to suggest you’d be a Premiership regular.

That takes us on to Montgomery’s progression over the last 10 months.

Against Hibs on day one of the league season, he had the look of a converted winger with a long way to on the defensive side of his game.

Andy Considine’s positional sense and leadership got him through that one and it’s been onwards and upwards ever since.

Arguably, the biggest compliment you can give Montgomery is that when Saints have switched from a three to a two in central defence and wing-back to full-back, he has looked every bit as competent.

He was one of the players name-checked by Steven MacLean for the energy and desire shown to hunt down Hibs’ substitute, Matthew Hoppe, in the fourth minute of injury time when a counter-attack looked on.

There are still moments when he switches off in the penalty box (letting Steven Fletcher drift off him before smashing a volley off the woodwork on Saturday the most recent example).

But his back post defending has, in the main, been reliable.

Adam Montgomery challenges Ilmari Niskanen at the weekend.
Adam Montgomery challenges Ilmari Niskanen at the weekend. Image: SNS.

When Saints are drawing up their recruitment plans over the next few weeks, asking the question about Montgomery’s 2023/24 availability is sure to be top of the to-do list.

His comfort on the ball and developing defensive savvy makes him already look like a Celtic second-in-line left-back in waiting.

Put it another way, as commendable as Anthony Ralston’s post-Perth career rise has been, Montgomery (at a younger age) has had the greater St Johnstone loan impact.

Saints fans will be hoping Ange Postecoglou comes to the conclusion that another season at McDiarmid will polish off the ever-decreasing rough edges.

And if that happens, Montgomery will likely put the ‘best Saints loan player of the modern era’ debate to bed.

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