We’ve invited fans of the 42 SPFL clubs (well, some of them at least) to give us a preview of their team’s upcoming season. Let’s find out what Dave St John thinks is in store for St. Johnstone…
Last Season’s Position – 4th
This Season’s Prediction – 6th
Key Man – Alan Mannus
The guilty little secret behind St Johnstone’s four seasons in a row of European football is that, one lightning-in-a-bottle season from Stevie May aside, they have not finished in the top half of the league in scoring in any of those seasons. Their success has been based on a settled defence, which – if you ignore Rangers’ last SPL season – has only been bettered by Celtic and Aberdeen over that period. The age of Frazer Wright and Dave Mackay was going to test this, but with Mackay and Stevie Anderson scheduled to miss the first six weeks of the season and Frazer Wright a risk to miss some games, Mannus will have to marshall whatever is in front of him from game to game to keep the bandwagon rolling.
Best Signing of the Summer – Liam Craig
Already working with a small squad, injuries meant Saints started their home Europa League tie with an end-of-the-bench midfielder and a reserve left back as holding midfielders, and four forwards in front of them. The 90 minutes that followed were fairly abject, and Craig was signed a week later. He may not become the important player he was before he left, but he could slot straight in. He can play on the left, but if Tommy Wright wants to play Wotherspoon and O’Halloran wide then Craig could play in a middle three (where Murray Davidson will miss at least 3 months). In a team that struggles to score goals, his long-range shooting and dead ball skills could be valuable.
The Manager – Tommy Wright
Chairman: Tommy, thanks for coming to this annual review meeting. How would you justify the team’s performance this year?
Wright: I like that picture on your desk there of you holding the Scottish Cup.
Chairman: Noted. Same time next year.
Tommy Wright will be just fine.
As well as enjoying the genuine affection of the fans, he has had some success taking flyers on players looking to come back from England like O’Halloran, Danny Swanson and Simon Lappin. It was also Wright who gave Stevie May the run in the team that Steve Lomas had denied him.
Expectations
A sustained level of basic competence is rarely sexy or exciting – you will struggle to identify a Kanye lyric about it for example – but in this post-Sevco world both Saints and Inverness have found that it is enough to give you a chance at genuine success. Across four seasons of European qualification, Saints’ aggregate league goal difference is exactly zero.
Last season’s fourth was probably an overachievement – only relegated St Mirren scored less goals than Saints’ 34. We start the season unsure of where the goals will come from, and probably not even sure of which forwards are going to play and where. Outside of Celtic, any team have a Motherwell or Hibs-level collapse. Yet even with all that, it just feels that Saints are too competent, and too defensively sound, to feel threatened by relegation. If they start the season badly (which may happen given the injuries at the back), they have the means to take players on loan or on free transfer in the Winter transfer window.
After four seasons of European football (have I mentioned we have qualified for Europe four years in a row?!), Saints fans have come to realise that it is very expensive to visit Eastern Europe, and much of it is not worth visiting – a view which is very much shared by our board. Give us top six, a decent run in the Cup, and hopefully a few more goals than last year, and most fans would probably be satisfied.
About The Author
Dave St John is a person, and St Johnstone fan. His Twitter account is a good example of why social media is A Bad Thing.
