Andy Considine picking up an injury-time red card and suspension in his team’s 4-1 defeat to Celtic was St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson’s chief frustration.
The Perth boss was proud of his players’ efforts in the Premiership contest, with Saints punished by a Hoops team at their clinical best in front of goal.
Davidson believes there was plenty to be contented with, despite the scoreline.
But having to do without his ever-present centre-back, who brought down Hyeongyu Oh at the edge of the box, when they next play against Dundee United a week on Saturday was a real “dampener”.
“Celtic can sometimes cone here and open you up but they had three chances and scored three,” said Davidson.
“It was a wee bit hard to take for the players but their heads didn’t go down and we got a great goal from Drey (Wright).
“In the second half I said can we stay in the game? Can we ask questions? And I thought we did that.
“We have a couple of great chances but against Celtic you are not going to dominate the ball or force the issue
“So I’m pretty proud of my players and how they went about their business.
“Then there was a goal at the end and Andy’s sending off – that annoyed me a little bit not just because of the game but because of the next game where we will miss Andy.
“That put a dampener on it but for me there were a lot of positives. I thought the boys did really well.”
Davidson added: “I haven’t really seen the red card back. He’s pulled his jersey but I don’t know who’s coming covering.
“I was a wee bit disappointed in that. As a manager you think of bigger pictures.
“I still take a lot of positives, though. Against a very good team I thought we did well.”
Eight games to the split – all winnable
The weekend results haven’t hurt Saints as far as the bottom six picture is concerned but there’s a lot of work to be done if they’re going to get into top half contention in the pre-split run-in.
“My first thought it safety first,” Davidson pointed out. “We’ve got eight games to get as many points as we can before the split.
“We don’t have the Old Firm now so every game is winnable – alright they are all lose-able too.
“What we’ve shown in the last four games, the two against Rangers, Motherwell and today is there’s a lot to be positive about.
“There are a lot of players staring to hit a bit of form who are like new players – Cammy MacPherson, Dan Phillips – these kind of guys who haven’t really been involved.
“I’m really a pleased about that.”
Nicky Clark missed the game with a back injury but Davidson is hopeful he’ll be OK to face his old side at Tannadice.
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