Craig Levein names 3 players told they can leave St Johnstone as Perth boss offers Airdrie slump theory

St Johnstone manager Craig Levein has told James Brown, Luke Jephcott and Cammy Ballantyne that they can leave the club.

All three were left out of the match-day squad for Saturday’s defeat to Airdrie.

And, having already signed Benji Kimpioka, Kerr Smith and David Keltjens, Levein knows that if he’s going to bring in further January recruits, he first needs to free up space.

“It’s kind of stalled,” he reported. “We’ve got to do some outs.

“That’s not under our control, really, a lot of the time.

“We are sitting waiting to see what happens.”

Brown has featured six times for Levein but Jephcott has only managed seven minutes of game-time off the bench at Tynecastle.

Ballantyne’s last match for Saints was back in August.

“I’ve said to them (Jephoctt and Brown) that if they want to find themselves another club, they can do that and if I can help in any way then I will,” Levein added.

“And Cammy can go if he can find something.

“I need to be able to clear the decks a bit to allow new faces to come in.

“That’s the issue.

“If I can, I need to get people to move to pastures new, which isn’t easy.

“The players have contracts so they have the control over it.”

Phillips back

Dan Phillips was badly missed at the weekend and could return for Wednesday night’s Premiership clash with Aberdeen.

“We could get Dan back,” said Levein. “He’s trained.

“He’s had this hamstring niggle, which was enough to put him out for two weeks.

“He’s having a really good season so we want him back in the team.”

Kerr Smith is back in training and may feature when Motherwell visit McDiarmid Park on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Levein believes three-and-a-half weeks of inactivity must have played a big part in the worst Saints performance since he took over.

“I can only put it down to the fact our rhythm was broken by the break,” he said.

“I can’t think of anything else.

“Apart from 20 minutes against Kilmarnock when we were off it and didn’t perform to the levels, every other game I’ve been happy with the effort, win or lose.

“That’s two-and-a-half months I’ve been in situ and I’ve no evidence of what happened on Saturday in any other matches.

“I’ve got to give them some sort of leeway but we need to quickly get back on track.

“I give them the benefit of the doubt.

“I’d hope any rustiness will be out of them now.”