St Johnstone remain a “work in progress”, manager Steven MacLean has admitted.
But he believes the display in their 2-0 defeat to Hearts should give belief to supporters and players that their Viaplay Cup ordeal has been parked and it will be a case of onwards and upwards in the Premiership.
“I thought our performance was a lot better,” said MacLean. “We worked very hard for each other.
“We’re going to be a work in progress.
“Sam (McClelland) trained a week, Dare (Olufunwa) trained two days and Matt Smith’s not trained yet.
“I thought in the first half we should’ve been in front.
“Liam Gordon had a great chance and we had another couple of opportunities as well.
“You’ve got to take your chances against the better teams in the league – any games in fact.
“But for attitude, performance and work-rate, I’m happy with them.
“It was one long ball into the box (for Hearts’ 75th minute opener), we don’t win the first contact and the boy scores.
“That’s the difference today.
“You can look at Hearts’ bench – what they had to bring on and the difference from ours.
“But we’ll get better going forward, we’ll bring in some more bodies and we will improve.”
Good debuts
Debutants McClelland and Olufunwa both hit the ground running at McDiarmid Park.
“They’ve not played any football this season at all so to go in at that level – I’m delighted for them,” said MacLean.
“They’re only going to improve.
“They’re young boys and you can see why we’ve brought them here.
“Matt (Smith) hasn’t trained.
“He probably doesn’t know any of the boys’ names and it only got put through this morning so he didn’t even know if he was going to be in this squad.
“He’ll be fine and we’ll be fine going forward.
“I’m happy with that and it’s something to build on.
“With another week’s training and hopefully another couple of bodies in, we’ll be good to go up to Ross County next week.”
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