Craig Levein reveals new transfers rule at St Johnstone as squad-shaping continues

St Johnstone manager Craig Levein has admitted that squad-cutting will now have to come before squad-building.

New owner, Adam Webb, added extra funds to the Perth transfer kitty, which has helped Levein bring in a number of players so far this summer.

With several weeks to go before the window closes, though, it will be a recruitment balancing act for the Saints boss.

“I’ve had a budget top-up,“ said Levein. “That’s already happened.

“But we are getting to that stage where it’s ones out to come in.”

‘Spruce the place up’

Webb can help improve the football operation at McDiarmid Park in other ways, Levein pointed out.

“We don’t have anything on analysis,” he said. “We have me!

“So that’s being looked at.

“The first time I spoke to Adam, I was on the phone for about two hours going over lots of different stuff.

“I could feel the enthusiasm in his voice for getting started. It’s a new era for the club.

“There are plans to do a number of different things, even just to spruce the place up down the stairs.

“There’s a better way of configuring all the spaces on the bottom level.

“For example, there’s an open space where you come in at the bottom of the stairs.

“A lot of the teams that come, particularly the Old Firm, have got bodies lying about in the corridors doing their stretching and all the rest of it.

“The two teams are both in the same corridor, pretty close to each other.

“I’ve said to them if they can look at maybe trying to get us in one area which is all ours and the opposition in another area which is all theirs.

“Then we don’t have people wandering about all over the place. It’s a little thing but something we’ve said to look at.”

Continuity

Levein and Webb, who will spend most of his year in America, won’t have a formal timetable of when they will speak to each other over the course of the season.

“I don’t have any arrangements to talk with Adam weekly or anything like that,” said Levein.

“But I get the feeling I can phone him any time I want.

“And Stan (Harris) is here for a wee while, Roddy (Grant) is here, so there’s continuity from that side of things.

“It will be interesting to see where it all goes.”