A 10-hour journey to Kazakhstan would have been much more preferable than a three-week wait for their next competitive game, St Johnstone’s Michael O’Halloran has admitted.
The Perth squad were devastated at exiting the Europa League after just one qualifying round on Thursday night.
And the upshot is that instead of flying out to Almaty on Tuesday morning, O’Halloran and his team-mates will be back in pre-season training.
The start of the Scottish Premiership campaign isn’t until next month, when Saints face Hearts at Tynecastle on August 2, and that seems like a long, long way in the distance.
O’Halloran, who scored at McDiarmid Park on Thursday night to level the tie before Alashkert’s away goal dashed their hopes, said: “We worked so hard to get into Europe again and were delighted to come back early for it.
“We were great towards the end of last season and deserved it when it came around for us.
“But we haven’t made the most of it, going out this early is a kick in the teeth.
“It’s three weeks now until the start of the season and we’ll have to dust ourselves down and get ready for the Hearts game.
“It will be back to pre-season for us now, we have some games coming up and the gaffer will want to look at a few things I’d imagine.
“We might get a little bit of rest, but to be honest we just want the season to come around now.
“We’ll have to lift ourselves but we have enough experience in the dressing-room to make sure we’re ready for the start of the season.”
The Saints players feel the weight of responsibility after their early departure from European football according to O’Halloran.
“A lot of people expected us to go through so we feel we’ve let ourselves, St Johnstone and Scottish football in general down,” he said.
“The lads are devastated about what happened and the way it happened.
“We were pushing for another goal and they caught us on the break.
“We have paid the price for trying to get another goal and it was a poor one to lose.
“The gaffer couldn’t fault our effort but the goal we lost was criminal, you can’t afford to do that at European level no matter who it is you’re playing.
“It cost us the tie and we’re out we’re gutted.”
The collateral damage from the Alashkert double-header has been a long injury list for Saints.
Pre-Yerevan Dave Mackay was already out, as was Chris Millar. But to those two names you can now add Murray Davidson, Simon Lappin, David Wotherspoon, Steven Anderson and Frazer Wright.
“We’re not making excuses but the injuries were a major thing,” O’Halloran stated.
“We were already without Murray Davidson, Chris Millar and Simon Lappin then David Wotherspoon got injured on Wednesday.
“That’s our first choice midfield.
“So the gaffer had to change things about, but that’s not an excuse because we were not good enough over the two legs.
“We didn’t deserve to go through.
“When we went in front I felt we were playing well and we were confident of winning the tie.
“But when we lost the goal it was always going to be difficult to score three and go through.
“When we didn’t score over there it was always a risk that they’d get a goal here and put us under pressure.”