St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson has sympathised with supporters who feel angry at the club’s decision over tickets for their Scottish Cup clash with Rangers.
There has been fan fury at the announcement last week that three stands will be occupied by followers of the visiting side later this month and that it will cost £30 and £20 to get into the game.
Fair City Unity made a ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ banner protest and didn’t occupy their usual seats until the second half of Saints’ 1-0 defeat to Dundee United.
And Davidson admitted being “frustrated” himself.
“For me, I want to win the game,” he said.
“As a player I used to love it when you had both stands full of St Johnstone fans.
“I sympathise with supporters. For me, it’s not great in that way.
“I want the best chance for us to get through in the cup. For me, that would be two stands of St Johnstone fans.
“So yeah, I’m a little bit frustrated.”
On the FCU waiting until the second half to turn up the volume in their corner of the East Stand, Davidson said: “I was more annoyed with my team so I didn’t really notice in the first half.
“We have to work with the supporters. It’s a really hard one.
“The supporters were there when we needed them last season.”
Worst performance of the season
Davidson described the display against United as “the worst performance of the season”, as Saints suffered their third defeat in a row and dropped down the Premiership table to seventh after Tony Watt’s late winner.
“First half I thought we were miles off it in terms of keeping the ball,” he said.
“Dundee United had most of the game without really causing us many problems.
“I went into half-time thinking ‘we can’t be that bad on the ball again’ and it’s 0-0.
“We got better in the second half but conceded a sloppy goal.
“I’m more disappointed to lose that game than the Hearts one.
“A draw would probably have been a fair result because I don’t think Dundee United did enough to win the game either.
“It was a game that could have given us a wee safety net.
“Worst case scenario we should have got a point and not let Dundee United get any closer to us.
“It was probably the worst performance of the season for me.
“We didn’t give the fans anything to sing about in the first half.
“When we play with tempo the fans back us.”
Meanwhile, Adam Montgomery missed the game through injury and Andy Considine through illness.
“He (Montgomery) has hurt his hamstring so he’ll be out for a wee while anyway,” said Davidson.
Whether his loan from Celtic will be extended is “ongoing”.
Davidson added: “There will be players I’ll be looking at, not just Adam. There might be one or two going out as well.”
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