St Johnstone manager Craig Levein is relieved that he didn’t stick to his pre-match plan of only giving David Keltjens an hour on his debut.
The Israeli international scored a 78th minute equaliser for the Perth side after two controversial VAR decisions – a disallowed goal and a penalty for Aberdeen – had gone against them.
The wing-back’s header salvaged a deserved point for Levein’s side, with the McDiarmid Park boss now believing Saints are “back on track” after their cup exit at Airdrie.
“It was our intention to take David off after 60 minutes but he was doing so well so we left him on,” said Levein.
“I thought he was excellent.
“He hasn’t played football for a long time but he is a good age, has played six times for Israel and it was about whether he was capable of performing at the levels we require.
“All credit to him, it was a really good debut and to get the goal was the icing on the cake.
“We try to encourage both wing-backs to get in the box and David did well to come in and score the header.
“In general he was really good. He was steady, reliable and tough.”
Point the least Saints merited
Levein added: “The performance was really good and if you have that you have a better chance of getting three points.
“We deserved at least a point.
“We’ve been unfortunate with Max (Kucheriavyi) hitting the bar, we’ve had one cleared off the line, we had the goal and really good passages of play as well as a goal chalked off.
“The difference in the performance tonight from Saturday was massive and it allows us to talk positively about the game this weekend.
“The bad taste of Airdrie is out of our mouth and we have shown character in this game.
“It’s got us back on track. At 1-0 down I’d have taken a point.”
VAR verdict
Levein hadn’t seen replays of a Graham Carey’s disallowed goal or the penalty awarded to the Dons – both understood to be for fouls by Liam Gordon.
“I’ve been told Gordy caught somebody for the penalty so that is fair enough but I don’t know about the goal,” he said.
“At corners it’s chaos.
“You can’t pick and choose which ones you give a foul for.
“If he has kicked someone that’s fair enough but I’m talking about something I don’t know about.
“I was asking the fourth official and trying to get some information but he’s got a job to do.
“If every decision is correct I’m happy for them to take as long as they want but when humans are involved that might not happen.”
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