St Johnstone made a full team’s worth of new signings as Steven MacLean embarked on a summer rebuild that became more extensive than first planned.
A combination of a torrid League Cup group campaign, early season Premiership struggles and an extensive injury list forced the Perth manager’s hand.
All that against a budget-cutting backdrop.
Courier Sport looks at each area of his squad now that the transfer window has closed to assess Saints’ recruitment business.
Goalkeepers
Signed – Dimitar Mitov (two-year contract) and Dave Richards (loan)
Losing former Scotland under-21 international, Ross Sinclair, to injury after he had shared starts with Mitov in the League Cup necessitated that two new goalies were brought up from England rather than just the one.
Whether Richards will ever actually play for Saints remains to be seen.
Sinclair could be back by January and Mitov has been the stand-out performer for MacLean thus far.
Here’s a photo of all the goalkeepers in Scotland who are better than Dimitar Mitov: pic.twitter.com/mj0KsDG8D5
— Blair Kaylor (@BlairKaylor) August 26, 2023
Saints’ man of the match against Hearts, Ross County and Celtic, he kept the McDiarmid Park side in their most recent game by tipping a Scott Tiffoney shot past the post when Dundee were 2-0 up.
He has thoroughly deserved his first call-up to the Bulgaria squad.
Not only is he highly likely to be the club’s player of the year, he may well end up the best keeper in the league, such are the standards Mitov has set.
Expect Saints to make a good profit on their investment when the time comes to sell.
Centre-backs
Signed – Sam McClelland and Dare Olufunwa (both two-year contracts)
This is arguably the area of greatest concern for MacLean.
Gone are the days of the Callum Davidson three at the back formation but the Perth boss could really do with a solid two-man partnership forming. And soon.
McClelland has had two good games so far and two in which he’s struggled.
That’s to be expected for a young defender who only has one season’s worth of senior football under his belt.
He reads the game well, has a good nose for danger and wins more than his fair share of headers.
As with Liam Gordon and Andy Considine, though, he’s not quick across the ground.
Olufunwa certainly is.
He was signed as a centre-back/full-back but he’s yet to be deployed in the middle.
It will be interesting to see if MacLean goes down that route over the next couple of months.
Given Olufunwa’s speed, it will be tempting.
As it stands (with Alex Mitchell back down south, Gordon having lost his form and his starting place and Ryan McGowan being made available for transfer not long ago) it would be a hard argument to make that Saints are stronger at centre-half than they were last season.
You’d get plenty of different answers at the moment if fans were asked to pick their best pairing.
In an ideal world, MacLean would have signed one more and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this becoming a January priority.
Full-backs
Signed – Olufunwa and Luke Robinson (season-long loan)
Olufunwa made an impressive debut (for Saints and in senior football) against Hearts.
He toiled in Dingwall seven days later but was far from alone in that.
Pace and power are the 22-year-old’s key attributes and there’s been enough evidence so far to suggest his form trajectory with Saints will be upwards.
He won’t ever be a Danny McNamara-type technician but he might just develop into a Shaun Rooney-type up and down the pitch athlete.
McGowan’s days as a Saints right-back are probably over, even if he stays in Perth for the season.
Drey Wright could be an option if MacLean wants to get more ball players into his team but it’s likely to be a straight fight between Olufunwa and James Brown most of the time.
That’s a battle the new man will feel he can win.
On the other side, Robinson has big boots to fill.
Adam Montgomery was superb for Saints.
But if you’re part of a back-four that keeps a clean sheet – on your debut, let’s not forget – then you can defend.
We can already see he’s not a Montgomery converted winger-style full-back.
However, the last 20 minutes of the Dundee game showed that Robinson has it in him to influence the play higher up the pitch.
His ceiling might not be as high as Olufunwa’s but, when he gets a proper grip on the demands of the Scottish Premiership, the Wigan man could be a consistent seven out of 10 performer and keep Tony Gallacher out of the side.
Midfield
Signed – Matt Smith, Sven Sprangler (two-year contracts) and Jay Turner-Cooke (season-long loan)
More than any other part of the squad, this feels like it could be a significant upgrade on where Saints were at the end of last season.
Picking three out of four from Dan Phillips, Smith, Sprangler and Turner-Cooke (potentially deploying the latter on the right) should excite supporters.
If the Austrian lives up to his billing, he and Smith will protect their centre-backs well and get the team moving forward.
Destroyer and distributor.
"It is a dream come true to join a team in Scotland. The people in Scotland treat football like a religion, just like me."#SaintsTV Spoke to Sven Sprangler after joining on a two-year deal subject to international clearance.#SJFC pic.twitter.com/F6PRDeRA5w
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) September 1, 2023
Phillips can, of course, do that CDM job expertly as well, but MacLean has an eye on pushing his current on-field captain further forward.
I’d be confident that we’ve only scratched the surface of what Smith will bring to the team and the same goes for Turner-Cooke.
Both are clearly talented footballers, comfortable in tight spaces.
With Max Kucheriavyi and Cammy MacPherson other options, Saints have genuine depth in midfield.
There’s stylistic balance, game-changing substitutes and the capacity to absorb form-dips, injuries and suspensions.
Forwards
Signed – Luke Jephcott (two-year contract) and Dara Costelloe and Diallang Jaiyesimi (both season-long loans)
Relying upon the return of Chris Kane, who hasn’t started a league match in 20 months, to give your team an attacking focal point isn’t a situation you’d choose to be in with summer about to turn to autumn.
MacLean has elected to be patient and not sign a link-man number nine in Kane’s and Nicky Clark’s absence.
It’s a big show of faith in both but also a big leap of faith.
Given their respective injury records, there’s a chance in both cases that their best years are behind them and that 2023/24 will be more stop than start.
If – and it is a big if – MacLean has at least one of them available for the vast majority of the season, he’s got an array of complimentary playing styles for other attacking slots.
Going past a full-back from a standing start with a drop of the shoulder or a trick isn’t Costelloe’s forte.
Owen Beck showed that at the weekend.
But give him grass to run into and a ball to chase and he can turn a defence and create a chance out of nothing.
Liam Scales being tied in knots at Celtic Park was exhibit A in that regard.
DJ Jaiyesimi has been recruited for his skill in tight situations as well as his pace – hopefully combining the best attributes of Costelloe and Graham Carey.
And, as mentioned above (and flagged up by ex-Saint and Newcastle coach, Graeme Jones), Turner-Cooke cutting in on his left foot from the right flank should be a valuable weapon.
Don’t write Stevie May off – he’ll want his chance playing with Clark again, in particular.
And a player who could truly elevate a well-functioning Saints side is a fully fit Jephcott.
He’s got the pedigree of a clinical finisher but it’s been a long time since a St Johnstone team created the sort of sustained pressure that a ‘fox in the box’ would thrive off.
If Jephcott is a regular starter (even better, a regular goalscorer) it will be a sure sign that Saints are on the right track.
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