St Johnstone will seek to address an eight-year statistical quirk when they host Dundee United on Saturday.
The home team has not emerged victorious from a meeting of these Tayside rivals since September 2015, when goals from Graham Cummins and Simon Lappin secured a 2-1 win for Tommy Wright’s Perth outfit.
Since then, TWELVE fixtures have passed without either the Saints prevailing at McDiarmid Park or the Tangerines triumphing at Tannadice.
It has been a particularly maddening sequence of results for St Johnstone, who have failed to even score in their last SIX matches against United in Perth.
Indeed, going back a little further, there has only been one home win in the previous 15 clashes between the sides.
And recent history suggests that a fraught, tight contest lays in store.
Neither team has won this fixture by a margin of more than a single goal since the Saints’ 2-0 victory at Tannadice on February 21, 2015 — 15 games ago.
Most recently, St Johnstone triumphed 2-1 on the road against United courtesy of Mark Birighitti’s staggering blunder to allow Stevie May to slide home the decisive goal.
The Terrors, meanwhile, secured a 1-0 victory on their last visit to Perth on January 2, with Tony Watt proving the match-winner.
No Home Comforts: The last 12
18/02/23: Dundee United 1-2 St Johnstone (Levitt; May 2)
02/01/23: St Johnstone 0-1 Dundee United (Watt)
01/10/22: Dundee United 1-2 St Johnstone (Watt; May, Hallberg)
05/02/22: St Johnstone 0-0 Dundee United
30/10/21: Dundee United 0-1 St Johnstone (Crawford)
22/08/21: St Johnstone 0-1 Dundee United (Pawlett)
12/01/21: Dundee United 2-2 St Johnstone (Appere, Shankland; Melamed, Kane)
10/11/20: St Johnstone 0-0 Dundee United
24/10/20: St Johnstone 0-0 Dundee United
01/08/20: Dundee United 1-1 St Johnstone (Clark; Craig)
02/04/16: St Johnstone 0-1 Dundee United (Dow)
21/11/15: Dundee United 1-2 St Johnstone (McKay; Kane, Davidson)
Tight
Speaking ahead of the showdown, United boss Jim Goodwin noted: “The games between the two teams have been relatively tight.
“But Dundee United’s record there (McDiarmid Park) is good and it’s not too far to travel for the lads.”
