St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson is hopeful he will have a full squad for the Scottish Cup final despite the “very concerning” Covid-19 crisis at McDiarmid Park that refuses to go away.
The Perth boss, whose side lost 4-0 to Celtic, had to leave eight players out of his match-day squad, nine if you count Scott Tanser.
The good news is that a few of those will be available for Saturday’s last league game of the season against Livingston – which Saints only need to draw to qualify for Europe.
But Davidson admitted that not letting the coronavirus outbreak “fester” into next week is the priority.
Asked how concerning the situation is for the cup final, he said: “Very concerning.
“I think the whole world is concerned about Covid, so it’s not just me, but it’s not a nice situation to be in.
“We’re doing our best with everybody, we’re not experts on it, so we’re trying to get as much help as we can to make sure we’re all safe.
“We followed government guidelines and it’s paramount we keep them safe.
“We’ll get three or four of the players back tomorrow, which is great, and the good news is that they’re all asymptomatic, so they are not suffering at all.
“We must try to stamp it out and we can’t let it fester until next week.”
Davidson revealed that the latest set of tests (on Tuesday night) didn’t throw up any more positives.
“We had to go up to McDiarmid at half eight last night to get tested, so they all drove up in their cars to get tested then went home,” he said.
“All credit to them tonight. Although it’s a 4-0 defeat I won’t fault them at all, and we actually could have score a couple as well.
“Like Charlie, young Alex Ferguson has made his debut tonight as well, so there’s a lot of positives for me.”
Nobody is yet ruled out for the May 22 clash with Hibs.
“No, not at the moment,” said Davidson. “So that’s why we’re trying to shut the place down as much as we can and test people as often as we can to make sure everyone is safe.”
The next issue will be whether the squad are able to train ahead of their game against Livingston on Saturday.
“I hope so,” said Davidson. “We’ll go over the guidelines with the government and follow their instructions to the letter to make sure we’re prepared.
“It will probably be socially distanced training, but it’s important to get the players out on the grass as quickly as possible.
“What this last week has taught us is that it’s a difficult virus, and that’s why we’re all in this pandemic.”
As far as the game was concerned, Davidson reflected: “It was difficult. Coming to Parkhead, I’m not going to harp on about it, but we hadn’t trained, so the players played on Sunday and came straight here.
“It’s really difficult for a professional athlete to do that but we had to make sure we were trying to be as safe as we can in our current position.
“I was actually delighted, which sounds really stupid when you’ve been beaten 4-0, but I thought the attitude of the players was fantastic.
“I gave Charlie Gilmour his debut and I thought he was excellent, a young man trying to make his way.
“It was that two-minute period in the first half that has basically cost us the game.
“We don’t have the largest squad as it is, so to miss a few players, it was always going to be hard. But the players who came in played really well and gave a good account of themselves.”
Depleted St Johnstone lose 4-0 to Celtic but now only need last day draw to qualify for Europe
