That’s not to suggest that there was a plan based on the mistaken belief that St Johnstone would stand back and admire our passing game. It was evident in the first twenty minutes that we were going to have plenty of the ball in the last third but it was also clear that our attempts to break through the well organised defence were not good enough.
Omar Daley gets the call
There was a lack of incisive movement when we were on the edge of the penalty area. Too many good passing moves petered out poorly with no end result. For variety we used Higdon as a target but the return from that tactic was also poor.
We’ll draw a veil over the goals that we lost but the defenders will not be keen to see the video playback. Hammell has already tweeted an apology for his part in the shambles but he should not be used as a scapegoat. The whole team knows that they didn’t rise to the standard they set earlier in the season.
The good news is that we have home games against Hibs on Tuesday and Aberdeen on Saturday. It is hard to believe that we’ll see a similar performance in these fixtures and with McCall’s anger at the Saturday showing ringing in their ears there should be some more urgency shown.
We had a brief look at Omer Daley but a twenty minute run when we were chasing the game is hardly a fair test. He didn’t have enough of the ball to let us form an opinion. With any luck he didn’t pay much attention to the game when he was on the bench otherwise he might be asking for a plane ticket back to the Jamaican sun!
A win against Hibs on Tuesday will put us in the quarter finals and a step closer to a return to Hampden.