St Johnstone boss Craig Levein gives ‘weeks or months’ update on Sven Sprangler knee injury

St Johnstone boss, Craig Levein, faces an anxious before he learns the extent of Sven Sprangler’s knee injury.

The Perth midfielder was forced off midway through the first half of Saints’ 3-1 defeat to Celtic.

The early prognosis was medial ligament damage.

But the Austrian will need to be assessed over the next few days before Levein can put an accurate timescale on his recovery.

“It looks like Sprangler has opened his medial ligament,” said Levein.

“I’ve no idea if he will be out for weeks or months.”

Tighter at the bottom

Saints now have a free weekend.

And when the Premiership campaign resumes against Dundee, the Perth side will only have a one-point advantage over second bottom Ross County following their own defeat and victories for the Staggies and Aberdeen, who moved above them into ninth.

“The result isn’t the thing that defines whether or not we stay in this league,” said Levein.

“This wasn’t a game I was marking down for three points.

“What other teams do is something I have absolutely no control over.”

Levein was happy with his team’s display without the ball against Celtic but unhappy that they didn’t do better with it.

“Our defensive display was really good,” he said.

“Losing the goal early in the second half was a killer blow but in the first half we restricted Celtic to very few opportunities.

“It was about half an hour until Celtic had their first shot on target.

“We kept them in the wide areas and managed to block any shots and crosses.

“But when we had the ball we just coughed it up every time.

“It seemed to be constant that we turned the ball over and invited Celtic to have another attack.

“That was the frustrating part.

“If you continually give the ball away to a team as good as Celtic, you’re going to be facing attack after attack.”

Impact from the bench

Connor Smith scored a late consolation for Saints.

And Levein made a point of name-checking his replacements.

“After the Dundee game a month ago, I was complaining about the lack of difference after I introduced some substitutes,” he said.

“This time I thought Tony (Gallacher), Max (Kucheriavyi), Connor (Smith) and Stevie (May) brought new life to the team.

“We scored a really good goal and looked a bit better in possession.

“Our guys could easily have folded in the second half. They didn’t, they kept going.

“They displayed guts and effort. Without that, you have nothing. It was there for all to see.

“They got beaten by a better team.”