There haven’t been many 2024/25 ‘bests’ as far as St Johnstone are concerned.
Graham Carey’s long-range strike at Livingston in the Scottish Cup would have been a contender for goal of the season for any team in any year but, that apart, there has been very little to celebrate in a bleak, relegation campaign.
So, instead of the usual post-season awards, Courier Sport has compiled an alternative list to draw a line under a wretched, best-forgotten 10 months of football.
A bit of gallows humour is called for.
Miss of the season
Uche Ikpeazu came up with a couple of end-of-season contenders, but Andre Raymond had this award bagged in August.
Saints had been the better team in the first half and Raymond should have given them a deserved lead.
With the Tannadice pitch immaculate, the Trinidad and Tobago international couldn’t claim a bobble put him off when Benji Kimpioka’s shot came back off the post and into his path.
Not quite an open goal but as near as dammit.
Best foul
Aaron Essel had served notice that he was a young man who might find Scottish officials less tolerant of his challenges than he was accustomed to in Ghana when he got a red card for a stamp at Alloa in the League Cup.
That was a big naughty, albeit with no possibility of seriously hurting his opponent.
The naughtiness went off the scale when Essel threw himself into a challenge at McDiarmid Park during an SPFL Trust Trophy game against Brechin not long after.
That he didn’t pick up a second red in a fortnight remains the biggest mystery of the season.
It was a challenge that would have fitted comfortably into one of those Danny Baker 1970s and 80s nostalgia videos.
Given the victim wasn’t injured, searching for it on social media every now and again is one of life’s guilty pleasures.
Best assist (for an opposition goal)
A category bursting at the seams.
You can probably say this about all relegated sides but, dearie me, this St Johnstone team had a propensity to shoot itself in the foot that took some beating.
From Kyle Cameron in the build-up to Aberdeen’s winning goal in the first game of the league season until the very end, Saints players gift-wrapped points for their opponents again, again and again.
No ‘assists’ were quite as impressive as the Jack Sanders cushioned header for Mohamed Diomande to score Rangers’ third in January.
It was like peak Gilzean to Greaves.
Biggest transfer saga
Another crowded field here.
Before a ball was even kicked, the list of clubs down south supposedly “tracking” Adama Sidibeh had reached farcical proportions.
It would be quicker to name the English Championship sides who WEREN’T name-checked than those who were – none of whom were actually considering an offer, of course.
In the end, only Swansea City made a (verbal) bid, but you did wonder for a while whether Sidibeh would be seen in a Saints shirt again.
Only after the Gambia international was sent off against Dundee United, did all the speculation die.
Given his struggles to find the net thereafter, there wasn’t a single “link” story written in January.
Two English clubs fighting it out for Sanders was an unexpected mid-season development and the end-game for him at McDiarmid was a bit murky.
Citing illness when Valakari desperately needed him to play in a league game against Motherwell raised suspicions in the Perth fanbase, but a spell in hospital a few weeks later backed him up.
From the moment he told his manager he wasn’t interested in a contract extension, it all went downhill.
Kimpioka, his top scorer, effectively became unpickable in Valakari’s eyes.
It remains to be seen whether the Swede will find a better club than the two (one in Belgium and one in the Netherlands) who were willing to pay him handsomely.
The word was Kimpioka had his heart set on the English Championship.
Good luck with that.
Angriest man (player)
Nicky Clark became a peripheral figure over the last few months of the season, but he was one of the main men at the start of it.
And his second half free-kick double to put Saints 3-1 in front against Ross County in Dingwall was the most impressive I can think of from a St Johnstone player.
That Clark’s defensive colleagues couldn’t prevent their opponents from equalising says it all about the shambles that was the Perth defence at that time.
They had badly let down a team-mate who should have been basking in the glory of a career high-point.
Clark spoke to the media after that game and the understandable fury was still written all over his face, even though he managed to be impressively diplomatic.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in the away dressing room.
Angriest man (manager)
Valakari has always been controlled in his post-match media duties, even though it hasn’t been hard to read between the lines on occasion.
He has also admirably stuck to his pledge that he would respect officials’ decisions.
Levein tried his best on that front but couldn’t help himself after Saints’ League Cup defeat to Rangers and then when Sanders was red-carded at the end of a Premiership loss to Motherwell.
“Have I spoken to the ref? What’s the point? Seriously, what’s the point. After the Rangers debacle you know what’s going to happen. It’ll be swept under the carpet.”
Those last few words earned Levein an SFA charge and a fine.
Best Forrest Gump impression
Valakari likes a Sunday morning run to clear his head after a game.
The head-clearing jog along the River Tay in December, after a 2-1 lead against St Mirren became a 3-2 defeat, almost turned into a marathon such was the significance and torment of that match conclusion.
But Bozo Mikulic has to get this award.
None of your predetermined goal celebrations for the big Croatian.
After he smashed home a late winner against Motherwell, Mikulic basically ran until somebody could catch him.
Given all the blows Saints had to absorb over the season, the only surprise is that VAR, the ultimate joy-killer, didn’t disallow it.
Best comedy moment of the season
You’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself, haven’t you? Especially in Scottish football.
Yes, losing to Alloa on the back on an utterly abject performance was the last thing Saints fans wanted to see as the new football season got underway.
And it proved to be a sign of things to come.
But Luke Rankin’s second goal of the night and his team’s third had a comedic beauty to it.
Poor Josh Rae.
He’d bailed out David Keltjens by making a brilliant save after the Israeli had been caught on heels at the start of an Alloa counter-attack.
His thanks?
Keltjens then tried (and failed) to play leapfrog with his goalkeeper, as Rae did his best to sprint back to his goal.
It was a clip worthy of the Benny Hill soundtrack Alloa put to it (then deleted, more’s the pity).
Worst example of ripping up a script
Saints had played over 130 minutes of football against Celtic without conceding a goal.
Until Barry Douglas decided the time was right to bin his manager’s strategy at goal-kicks and chip a ball towards his smallest team-mate, setting in motion a chain of events that saw the Hoops take the lead in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
Inexplicable then. Inexplicable now.
Best own goal
Sanders, Clark, Jason Holt and Sven Sprangler were all in the Perth OG club.
However, they were very much junior members in comparison to the man who put them in the shadows at Tynecastle on the night Saints were relegated.
There are balls across the six-yard box that a defender has no option other than to throw his leg out to meet.
This wasn’t one such occasion, let’s just leave it at that.
Most inevitable opposition man of the match
We could all have gone home after Tony Watt was serenaded by the away end at Fir Park in April.
That he would roll back the years and do his best Harry Kane impression was written in stone.
Best use of the dark arts
Valakari mentioning David Martindale’s “tricks” before Saints played Livingston in the Scottish Cup was amusing.
Not as amusing as Sky Sports catching the McDiarmid Park ball boys getting a message delivered to them to (presumably) take their time with their ball retrieval work, though.
If only more players had been as good at helping Saints see a game out.
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