For the second year running St Johnstone are out of the Viaplay Cup before their league season is underway.
Ayr United ended the Perth side’s hopes of progressing to the last 16, with Max Kucheriavyi’s first goal for the club counting for nothing.
Courier Sport picks out three talking points from the 2-1 defeat.
Not clinical enough
Saints dominated most of this match.
They should have been at least one goal in front by the time George Stanger headed home a Jamie Murphy free-kick on 24 minutes.
Stevie May missed the best opportunity – a one v one with goalkeeper, Charlie Robinson and a rebound header that should also have been finished off.
Then, after Kucheriavyi’s 43rd minute equaliser, the second half followed the same pattern as the first, Saints bossing the game but Ayr scoring.
This time there was no way back from Mark McKenzie’s deflected long-range shot finding the net.
And had it not been for Dimitar Mitov saving a late penalty, the scoreline would have been even more emphatic in the visitors’ favour.
Saints are still very much a work in progress (in need of signings) and this was a step back after Saturday’s encouraging performance at Alloa.
Max’s big moment
Max Kucheriavyi has started all three group games for Saints.
That represents a big opportunity for a young player to make a first team breakthrough.
For the first two of those, you couldn’t say that he seized it.
At Stenhousemuir, like the rest of his team-mates, the Ukrainian under-21 international played things a bit safe.
At Alloa, Kucheriavyi was more ambitious but struggled to put his stamp on the match all the same.
This contest will hopefully prove to be a leap forward.
He started brightly by setting up Cammy Ballantyne for a chance Saturday’s man of the match should have put away and then played a lovely, defence-splitting pass through to Stevie May – all within the first five minutes.
His signature move of cutting in-field on to his left foot was beginning to look telegraphed as the half progressed, though.
And you were starting to think that this might turn into another ‘just OK’ day’s work for the 21-year-old.
Then two minutes before the break he got his head to a Graham Carey cross to send a looping header into the Ayr net.
And he nearly repeated the trick at the back post on the stroke of half-time.
Carey causing chaos
If you’d seen the Irishman hobbling out of the Indodrill Stadium on Saturday you wouldn’t have given him any chance of playing in this game – in fact, you’d have been worried whether he would make the start of the league season.
His manager’s optimistic Monday morning prognosis proved to be correct, however, and Carey was in an unchanged starting line-up.
His manager’s prediction that the former Plymouth Argyle and CSKA Sofia playmaker looks set to be a key man for him this season also looks well-founded.
There was an embarrassing miskick of a cross into the North Stand when Tony Gallacher picked him out beyond the Ayr full-back.
But there were plenty moments of class to outweigh it.
Skipping by his marker, Nick McAllister early in the second and then delivering a cross that Kucheriavyi nearly scored from was the highlight.
There are clearly problems for Steven MacLean to fix over the next fortnight but Carey’s form is trending in the right direction.
