St Johnstone find themselves back in the free agent market.
Charles Dunne has been targeted as Perth boss, Craig Levein, seeks to bolster his team with a new centre-half.
And it remains to be seen whether a goalkeeper and/or a left-sided player is also on his wish list before January comes around.
Courier Sport picks out five Saints success stories between transfer windows and five that didn’t work out.
The good – Lee Croft
Croft was an excellent loan signing from Derby County for St Johnstone in the second half of the 2011/12 season.
He scored on his debut at Easter Road and in two subsequent league victories.
Unfortunately, Steve Lomas was beaten to his signature by Oldham Athletic that summer.
But the Croft and Saints story wasn’t finished and, after finding himself without a club for 2013/14, the former Manchester City winger trained at McDiarmid Park in November and then signed a deal through to the end of the season.
Croft played in the League Cup semi-final against Aberdeen, hitting the post when the Dons were just 1-0 up, but was sidelined with an injury for the Scottish Cup last-four victory over the same opponents.
He regained his fitness in time for the final.
Michael O’Halloran and David Wotherspoon were the starting wide players but Croft was the first sub introduced by Tommy Wright, 10 minutes before Steven MacLean made the score 2-0.
Sanel Jahic
The Bosnian defender only played six times for St Johnstone.
But one of that half-dozen proved to be very important.
Saints started off their road to Scottish Cup glory by beating Livingston 2-0 at McDiarmid Park on November 30, 2013.
Jahic scored the second goal that afternoon.
He had been signed in late October when Steven Anderson was injured and Frazer Wright suspended but was no longer at McDiarmid Park by the time Saints next played in the cup at Forfar.
Jahic, a composed defender on the ball, got the game-time he was looking for in the second half of that campaign in the Swiss top flight with Grasshoppers but couldn’t force his way into the Bosnia-Herzegovina squad for that summer’s World Cup in Brazil.
James McFadden
A footballer isn’t often well past his peak at 31 but, in light of McFadden’s injury record, that was unfortunately the case for the darling of the Tartan Army.
Wright picked him up on a short-term deal in October, 2014, after MacLean was ruled out for six months.
“There’s a little bit of a gamble on the part of both the club and the player,” said Wright.
The fact that the deal was extended to the end of the season, McFadden played 20 times and scored twice, and Saints finished fourth in the league and qualified for Europe again tells you it was a gamble that paid off.
Callum Booth
Like McFadden, Booth’s first deal with Saints was a short one (from mid-September to January).
The former Hibs player, who became available after Bury were expelled from the EFL, didn’t make his debut until the start of December but went on to play 15 times in the 2019/20 season that was cut short by Covid-19.
Booth and Scott Tanser shared left wing-back duties in the double season but the ex-Dundee United man was Callum Davidson’s first choice in both finals.
His tackles to start the move for Shaun Rooney’s winner in the Scottish Cup final will forever be cherished by Saints supporters.
Guy Melamed
Another double-winner, Melamed was signed by Davidson in October, 2020 after his Israeli club fell into financial difficulties.
It took him a while to get going – not helped by a requirement that he had to spend a fortnight in isolation at a local hotel – but he had scored seven goals by the time he left.
A Fir Park brace helped ensure Saints went into the League Cup final on top form and his exquisite Berkamp-esque late equaliser at Hamilton a couple of days later kept momentum going.
Although he didn’t feature in either final, Melamed scored a winner against Dundee and the opener against Clyde in the early rounds of the Scottish Cup.
The not so good – Derek Riordan
Riordan was just 29 when he signed for Saints in March, 2012.
But, unlike stars who had lost their way and found McDiarmid Park to the perfect place to reignite their career, such as Jody Morris, this short deal proved to be a continuation of a story that was trending in the wrong direction.
Riordan had been without a club since a stint in China turned sour but in his four end-of-season appearances for Saints, there was no suggestion that he could get anywhere near to the standards he reached with Hibs.
Lomas’ team lost every game he featured in and there were no goals from the ex-Celtic forward.
Plamen Klachunov
Like most managers, Wright welcomed plenty of trialists to McDiarmid Park.
At the start of 2016, Julien Faubert, who had a short spell with Real Madrid came and went, as did Nigerian defender, Daniel Adejo.
Near the end of February, Bulgarian defender, Krachunov, was signed for the remainder of that season.
It didn’t turn out to be a St Johnstone career to trouble the history books – two appearances, two defeats, one start.
Efe Ambrose
Unfortunately, there haven’t been many free agent hits out with the transfer windows in recent memory.
Initially, after Ambrose was signed at the start of September, 2021, in the wake of the most traumatic deadline day Saints fans had ever suffered, it looked like the veteran might have a shot at turning himself into a Perth cult hero.
Saints won at Pittodrie on his debut and then beat Dundee in league and cup.
The good times were short-lived, though.
Ambrose’s performance against his old club, Livingston, was calamitous in a 3-0 home defeat and he struggled badly at Parkhead the following Saturday.
That would turn out to be his last start and he was released mid-season as the era of big transfer window squad changes gathered pace.
Viv Solomon-Otabor
It was hard to keep up with the comings and goings in that season.
Solomon-Otabor arrived near the end of November as a post-Wigan Athletic free agent and was off again in January.
In between times, the powerful forward featured on seven occasions.
Had he joined a different St Johnstone team in different circumstances, Solomon-Otabor may well have shone.
Jacob Butterfield
Rightly or wrongly, when many fans picture that Saints side and wince at the drop-off in midfield following Ali McCann’s departure, Butterfield is the player who springs to mind.
Maybe he would have adapted to the Scottish Premiership earlier in his career – he certainly had some good clubs on his CV.
But at 31, on returning to Britain from Australia, Butterfield didn’t have the engine to influence games for Saints.
The fact Butterfield dropped down to English non-league football the next season tells its own story.
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