Interest in some of St Johnstone’s high profile double winners this summer was inevitable.
What they achieved doesn’t go unnoticed – even at a club which goes under the radar a lot of the time.
It was phenomenal what happened at McDiarmid Park last season – or rather Hampden Park, should I say.
Saints have all their main players under contract, even if it’s just for another year.
It was never realistic that the squad could be kept together and if one or two do move, as appears likely, they’ve got a chance of bringing decent money in.
Callum Davidson will be hoping it stays at one or two and doesn’t become three or four.
The main thing for Saints fans, though, is that they have the right man in charge who will already have an eye on who he’d like to bring in if he has to and, more importantly, he’s the right man to coach them.
So I won’t worry for them if they lose Shaun Rooney and a couple of others.
The concern would be if it’s Callum himself who becomes the target.
Happy birthday to Callum Davidson 🥳#SJFC pic.twitter.com/6DJvwkhQPa
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) June 25, 2021
You would say that all the jobs are filled now for the start of the season but we know how quickly that can change.
Managers can get sacked within a couple of weeks these days.
It’s inevitable that Callum will be at the top of a lot of lists if and when the managerial merry-go-round starts moving again.
Only at that point should Saints fans start worrying.
Monday produced one of the great days of football.
Croatia v Spain and then France v Switzerland were two brilliant games.
And goalies were grabbing the headlines.
We’re used to keepers being the heroes when it comes to penalty shoot-outs but the new rule about keeping one foot on the line has made it much harder to save spot-kicks.
What needs to be understood is the technique used these days goes against our natural instincts.
As a goalkeeper you’re taught to go forward with your bodyweight to get more power into your spring.
These guys will have had to do a lot of work on the training ground to change that muscle memory and make that first move a sideways one.
VAR won’t let you away with anything at that level so Yann Sommer’s technique needed to be perfect to stop Kylian Mbappe’s penalty and make sure it was just legal.
In the game before, every keeper in the world would have felt for Spain’s Unai Simon.
I hate to see goalies controlling the ball with the outside of the boot but there was nothing wrong with the way he opened up his foot to take the pass-back on the inside of his.
It was taking his eye of it that was the problem.
Spain keeper Simon bringing the joy to all of Europe today. This tournament has been superb for #OG's! #CROESP pic.twitter.com/b3ZyVG5M5I
— The Own Goal Zone (@OwnGoalZone) June 28, 2021
The nearest I had to something like that was a heavy touch I took from a Joos Valgaeren back-pass at Pittodrie, which let Darren Mackie get in and score.
We lost that day so it was a tough one to take.
I had to bounce back in the game and that’s what Simon did so well on Monday.
He played his part in a brilliant extra-time win in the end so all will be forgiven, if not forgotten!
