St Johnstone striker Stevie May will meet up with the Scotland under-21 squad today ahead of their midweek match in Holland.
The international break means he won’t have a game for his club until a week on Saturday. And by the time that the Hibs game comes around, May could well have signed a contract extension.
The young forward has made it clear that he wants to stay at McDiarmid Park beyond next summer, and Peterborough United were told they were wasting their time in their bid to lure him south.
Talks have begun with Saints and a deal should be done in days or weeks, rather than months.
May said: “It did drag on for a while (the Peterborough pursuit of his signature) but I wasn’t paying too much attention to it.
“I’m a St Johnstone player. I’m happy to be here and happy to be playing football.
“I’ve got a lot of games at the start of this season, and I’d like to think I’ve performed relatively well. Hopefully I can get back in the starting line-up and kick on from there again.”
For all May’s pre-season concerns about not getting his chance at McDiarmid, Saturday’s match at Aberdeen was actually the first Premiership fixture he hasn’t started this term.
Manager Tommy Wright went with Nigel Hasselbaink and MacLean up front in Aberdeen, before May replaced the latter shortly after the hour mark.
No real chances came his way. In fact not many chances came the team’s way.
David Wotherspoon forced a good save out of Jamie Langfield from inside the box in 40 minutes and Murray Davidson side-footed over the bar from around 12 yards on 57 minutes.
Other than that the best openings fell to Aberdeen in the second period.
The first half was an even affair. After the break though, the Dons were the dominant force and Saints had veteran keeper Stevie Banks to thank for several excellent saves. The pick of those was a tip round the post from Niall McGinn.
McGinn also hit the bar and there was a Josh Magennis header disallowed for offside.
Saints weren’t back to their pre-Dundee United fluent best, but they were back to their pre-Dundee United defensive reliability.
This isn’t a team prone to two error-strewn performances in a row.
May pointed out: “Last week against Dundee United I thought we were really unlucky. We didn’t play as badly as the 4-0 result suggested.
“We went over the video and looked at what we didn’t do right, and where we could improve. The boys knew themselves it wasn’t good enough, but United scored with virtually every chance they had. You’re going to have days like that though.
“This week we’ve gone back to basics and made sure we were hard to beat. We did that, cut the mistakes out, and a draw away at Aberdeen is definitely not the worst result you can get.”
Aberdeen have now gone three home games on the bounce without scoring. It’s the sort of statistic those inclined to believe that this will be another false dawn for the Dons will latch on to.
Magennis stressed that there is no panic in their dressing room.
He stated: “To be fair, we knew St Johnstone were always going to give us a tough game. They are a hard-working team and they graft so it was down to us to create chances and their keeper pulled off a couple of good saves.
“On another day we could have won the game 2-0 or 3-0. We are just in that transition now, at the start of the league, where chances aren’t going in at the moment, but it is only a matter of time before someone takes a doing.
“Those chances will start going in and we will start climbing up the league. It is frustrating but we can’t let that frustration get into the camp. We are five games in and we have to stay positive.”
Former Saints boss Derek McInnes certainly wasn’t surprised that his old club stuck to their task in the face of the second half Aberdeen pressure.
He said: “I know a lot of the St Johnstone boys. They’re never too expansive the way they’re set up and they’re difficult to play against. That’s a team that has been built over a few years. For us the reference point going forward is forcing the issue from minute one.”
Saints boss Wright said: “A point away to Aberdeen is always a good point. We worked very hard, especially in the second half when they created more chances than us.”