St Johnstone manager Steven MacLean has revealed that he has got two more transfers “done”.
The Perth boss was furious with his team’s performance in their shock 1-0 Viaplay Cup defeat to League Two side, Stenhousemuir.
The need for new outfield recruits is inarguable and MacLean is confident that Saints are on the brink of completing a couple of deals.
“I’ve got two done but just not over the line,” he said.
“One is up tomorrow so it’s good. I’m happy with him.
“The other is a wee bit complicated. Hopefully they’ll be in.
“They’re never done until they’re done but they’re agreed.”
Reflecting on the defeat to Stenhousemuir, which leaves Saints with no margin for error if they’re going to progress to the knockout stage of the League Cup, MacLean was angry that his players didn’t take on board his pre-match warning.
“It was poor,” he said. “We got what we deserved. We didn’t play anywhere near the levels we should.
“It’s my team and my responsibility and it wasn’t good enough. It needs to be better.
“For the goal, Gordy (Liam Gordon) stepped in, tried a diagonal, shanked it and they’ve counter-attacked and scored.
“We could have done a lot of things better. We should have scored two or three. People need to be braver to get on the end of things.
“We didn’t start great and we need to understand what we need to do instead of saying it at half-time.
“The tempo was poor, the way we moved the ball, we never created or put them under enough pressure.
“I told them what we wanted then we conceded a sloppy goal and we didn’t deserve anything.”
‘Soft’ Saints
MacLean added: “Subconsciously maybe some think their places are there because there are injuries and it’s not a big squad.
“I include the injuries too – we need to do more to be back on the pitch.
“We were soft and we need to be back to what we’re good at. We had a meeting yesterday saying we were sloppy in the week and it happened again.
“But it’s my team. I’ll back them but they know where they stand with me. For as much as I’m livid we can still qualify if we win our next three games.”
Meanwhile, Chris Kane won’t need surgery on his ankle injury.
MacLean reported: “Kane is grade one damage all the way around the ankle so he’ll be back when the pain gets better.”
