St Johnstone

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Can St Johnstone produce a "Levein special" at Pittodrie on Saturday to boost their survival hopes?

The Perth side have won just one of their last six games and sit 10th in the Scottish Premiership, one point ahead of second-bottom Ross County.

However, Craig Levein's men did win their last meeting with Aberdeen, a 2-0 win at Pittodrie in February, and are unbeaten against them this season.

"I can kind of see a Levein special at Pittodrie," Daily Record football journalist Daniel Caw told the BBC's Scottish Football Podcast.

"I can see him going there with his tactical nous; I think St Johnstone will get something.

"I don't know if it will quite be all three points, but I just think Aberdeen will be so deflated after that semi-final a couple of weeks ago.

"St Johnstone, with Levein, I just can't see them losing at the weekend."

Former St Johnstone defender Shaun Rooney has left Fleetwood Town with Perth fans sending out a "bring him home" message. (The Courier), external

Read the rest of Friday's Scottish gossip.

It's not been the best of seasons for St Johnstone, but has anyone stood out to you?

Who would you like to see named as the Perth side's player of the year? Have your say here.

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• Aberdeen have only won two of their last nine home league games against St Johnstone (D3 L4), losing most recently 2-0 in February.

• After their 2-0 win in February, St Johnstone could win back-to-back league meetings with Aberdeen for the first time since October 2015.

• Aberdeen have won two of their last three Scottish Premiership home matches (D1), as many as they managed in their previous 11 games at Pittodrie (D6 L3).

• St Johnstone have lost four of their last five league matches (W1), conceding 2+ goals in all four of those defeats. In fact, since losing their first match of 2024 on 7 February, St Johnstone have lost the most matches (8) and conceded the joint-most goals (20) in the competition.

• St Johnstone’s Dimitar Mitov has prevented 10.1 goals in the Scottish Premiership this season according to Opta’s Goals Prevented model – the most of any goalkeeper - conceding 48 goals (excl. own goals) from an expected goals on target conceded (xGOT) figure of 58.1.

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American businessman Adam Webb, whose proposal to buy the majority stake in St Johnstone from Geoff Brown has been accepted, says he looks forward to becoming a "custodian" of the club.

Webb, along with business partner Matthew Klase, has set up a company to complete the takeover, which they are "optimistic" of being completed soon.

Improving the fan experience and success on the pitch are some of the key aims of the prospective regime, according to Webb.

"As noted in media reports today [Wednesday], Saints in America, LLC has been negotiating with Geoffrey Brown, OBE toward purchasing his controlling interest in St Johnstone FC," he said in a statement.

"The process is ongoing and we will not make a detailed statement at this time. We are at liberty to state, however, that we are optimistic about the transaction being approved and finalized in short order and we look forward to serving as custodians of the club for many years to come.

"The Browns and the staff at St Johnstone have been a pleasure to deal with and the fans and the people of Perth have been most welcoming.

"We are excited to take on the challenge to grow the club through success on the pitch, improving the fan experience, dedication to the community, and respect for the 140 years of history and tradition at St Johnstone."

St Johnstone continue their post-split games with a trip to Pittodrie to take on Aberdeen.

But who should be in the starting line-up for Saturday's game?

Put yourself in Craig Levein's shoes and pick your XI here.

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Twenty-six decisions since the start of the Premiership season have been deemed incorrect by the Scottish FA's VAR independent review panel.

The tally, based on incidents requested by the panel or submitted for consideration, is a rise of 10 since February's last meeting of the group.

Not among the incidents included was one where Hibernian claimed the Scottish FA agreed an error had been made.

The governing body later disputed that assertion, made after Hibs were not awarded a penalty after Aberdeen's Nicky Devlin handled in February's 2-2 draw.

The 10 incorrect decisions shared with Premiership clubs on Wednesday were:

Rangers 2-1 Aberdeen (6/02/24): VAR intervention was correct, but final outcome should have been yellow card to Rangers' Dujon Sterling. Referee retained his on-field decision of a red card.

St Mirren 2-0 Dundee (7/02/24): VAR intervention was correct, but final outcome should have been yellow card to St Mirren's James Bolton. Referee retained his on-field decision of a red card.

Ross County 1-1 St Mirren (27/2/24): VAR should have recommended an on-field review. Final outcome should have been penalty awarded against Ross County for handball.

Hearts 1-1 Hibernian (28/2/24): VAR intervention correct, but penalty decision, which led to Hearts' equaliser, should have been overturned - no foul and no penalty should have been awarded.

Kilmarnock 1-2 Rangers (28/2/24): VAR should have recommended an on-field review. Final outcome should have been penalty decision, which led to Kilmarnock opening the scoring, overturned - no handball offense against Rangers.

Hearts 2-0 Celtic (3/3/24): VAR should have recommended an on-field review. Penalty decision should have been overturned - no foul and no penalty should have been awarded to Celtic.

Hearts 2-0 Celtic (3/3/24): On-field decision correct, no penalty to Hearts. Handball should not have been awarded for spot-kick that led to opening goal.

Motherwell 0-1 Aberdeen (16/04/24): VAR should have recommended an on-field review. Penalty to Motherwell should have been awarded for handball.

Hibernian 1-2 St Johnstone (6/4/24): VAR should have recommended an on-field review. Penalty should have been awarded to Hibs for foul by St Johnstone goalkeeper Dimitar Mitov.

St Mirren 1-2 Hearts (6/4/24): VAR intervention correct, but penalty should have been awarded to St Mirren for a foul on Conor McMenamin by Aidan Denholm.

It now looks a straight fight between St Johnstone and Ross County for the relegation play-off place.

It’s difficult to predict, but from what I’ve seen of County, they have a bit about them. They have a goal threat, they’ve got patterns of play, and Don Cowie has done an unbelievable job to turn around what was a toxic environment when Derek Adams walked out.

There’s a bit of positivity at County – even after the weekend defeat by Livingston – but I’m not sure the same can be said for St Johnstone.

The style of football under Craig Levein is dire. It inspires no positivity and is inherently negative. It might get the odd result here and there, but do folk want to be involved in that?

It’s worrying times for St Johnstone. Their form is not great at all, I don’t see a massive goal threat, and three of their last four games are away, whereas County have three at home.

County’s only away game is at McDiarmid Park – that’s a huge one.

St Johnstone just look flat. And you would fear for them in the play-offs.

Michael Stewart was speaking to BBC Sport Scotland's Martin Watt

Sam Miller
Fan writer

When we needed heart, we stood off. When we needed courage on the ball, we got misplaced passes. When we needed players to step up, we got bad defending and a complete lack of confidence.

St Johnstone's match against Hibs, who had little at stake, was the perfect opportunity to get some points on the board and push closer to safety.

But instead we got a lacklustre performance void of any positives. If it wasn't for Dimitar Mitov in goal it could have been the proverbial cricket score, and this isn't the first time I've said that this season.

Craig Levein's podcast may be called 'Sacked in the Morning' for now, but if he can't turn this around it could be 'Sacked after losing in the play-off'.

As it stands, not many people can see any other outcome.

Sam Miller can be found on the Dogger Saints podcast., external

Sportscene pundit Neil McCann on how St Johnstone goakeeper Dimitar Mitov saved his side from an even heavier defeat against Hibs. (Available to UK users only)

Watch the best of the action from Hibernian's win over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park. (Available to UK users only)

We asked for your thoughts on St Johnstone's 3-1 home defeat by Hibernian.

Here is what some of you said:

Ally: Probably the poorest performance I’ve seen from Saints. Watching the players' efforts and reactions to going two goals down was very disappointing. Too many negative players, a pure reflection of our management team. Mr Brown needs to remove Craig Levein and Andy Kirk immediately and put Alex Cleland in charge until the end of the season.

Jason: Gutless, leaderless and going to end up going down. Ryan McGowan said they needed the fans - we needed a team to show so fight and passion, but we got neither. Levein says it was a good week in training but they can't even pass 10 yards - disgraceful.

Anon: Manager trotting out the same crap after every home game. Too many backward passes when a forward one may create a chance/mistake. Need to get rid of the negative mindset, so thanks Craig, but yer number's up. I thought he was the answer, but I was wrong. Said it here before, play-offs are us.

Jackie: Apart from Dimitar Mitov, I don’t rate any player in this team that will save us from relegation. We just don’t play as a team. Levein hasn’t done anything to help us since he took over as manager. Four games now to save our season. Can’t see it happening.

Gordon: I actually cannot bring myself to even listen to Levein any more. The only thing I can reasonably think is that dismissing Levein and Kirk MIGHT save us. If they remain in charge, we will sleepwalk our way to relegation. They have been proved over and over and over again of being unable to even do the basic thing of motivating the players. The ba' is bust.

Anon: I thought Levein was a safe option to keep us up. 1-0 up at Dens Park in January we were actually sixth in the league. Too many players playing the season out as they are out of contract. We are going down via play-off and I will take that as overhaul from top to bottom is required. Form says we deserve to be relegated.

What did you make of that St Johnstone fans? Do you agree with Craig Levein's sentiments, or did you see any positives in the game?

Have your say here.

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St Johnstone manager Craig Levein tells BBC Scotland: "I don't think we deserved anything from the match. First-half performance was poor. That gave Hibs the hope they needed. We gave them a 2-0 lead at half-time and we tried manfully to get back into the game but we didn't manage it.

[On Mitov's performance] "Dimitar has done that all season for us and we've come to expect him to pull of those type of saves. We had to go for it in the second half and opened ourselves up to the counter.

"In the first-half we couldn't pass the ball to each other and that's quite important. We made poor decisions and gave the ball away, we need to take more care in the final third. Our crossing was poor. More often than not we hit the first man.

[On Ross County result] "It gives us a big bit of hope. I'd rather be in our position than Ross County's. We need to do much better next time out."

Andrew Petrie, BBC Sport Scotland

The sliding doors moment in this game could be pinpointed to Adama Sidibeh's first-half miss.

The striker has done well since his January arrival in Perth, but when one-on-one he had to score and level the game. From there who knows what could have happened, but instead momentum swung to the visitors.

There were positives in that first-half. Dan Phillips looked superb, breaking up the midfield play. Luke Robinson was charging up the left, well backed up by Andy Considine.

The wind was taken out of their sails by the second goal, they became desperate in the second-half, and it took them far too long to find a goal.

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Dimitar Mitov. The ability of bottom-six Premiership clubs to find a goalkeeper you've never heard of is incredible.

Mitov made at least four superb saves, denying Emiliano Marcondes and Josh Campbell with iron wrists.

It could have been five or six had it not been for the Bulgarian.

St Johnstone: Mitov, McGowan, Gordon, Considine, Franczak, Phillips, M Smith, Robinson, Carey, Sidibeh, Clark.

Substitutes: Richards, May, MAcPherson, Wright, Kucheriavyi, Olufunwa, Kimpioka, Keltjens, C Smith.

Hibernian: Marshall, Cadden, Fish, Bushiri, Obita, Moriah-Welsh, Newell, Boyle, Marcondes, Maolida, Le Fondre.

Substitutes: Wollacott, Hanlon, Levitt, Vente, Mayenda, Stevenson, Triantis, Tavares, Campbell.

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Luke Amos, Lewis Miller and Dylan Vente could return for Hibernian but Jake Doyle-Hayes remains out.

Diallang Jaiyesimi, Cammy MacPherson and Drey Wright have returned to training for St Johnstone but Sven Sprangler is still missing.

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St Johnstone manager Craig Levein has challenged his side to put a consistent run of positive results together as they look to strengthen their Premiership survival hopes.

The Perth side sit 10th in the league before Saturday's clash with Hibs, one point ahead of 11th-placed Ross County, and Levein is "hopeful" they can secure their top-flight status.

“It is our lack of consistency at times that gets me a little bit frustrated," Levein said.

“I am hoping that we have prepared properly and are ready to go and we take into account that Hibs are a good side and we really need to get three points.

“We look at the opposition and try to work out how we can nullify them.

“We’ve done that again this week and I am hopeful that we can be creative enough to create chances and score and that would give us a good chance to win.

“That is the intention but there is a lot of things that can happen in 90 minutes and Hibs are a good side.

“For us to achieve our aim we have to play really well.

“Training has been good this week, it is not always an indication that things are going to go well at the weekend but I have been happy with them.

“I am hopeful shall we say.”

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• St Johnstone have won their last two league meetings with Hibs; they haven’t won three in a row over the Easter Road men in the top flight in the 21st century.

• After their 1-0 defeat in December, Hibs could lose back-to-back top-flight away games at St Johnstone for the first time since October 2010.

• St Johnstone are without a win in seven home league games (D3 L4), losing their last two in a row; they last had a longer home league losing run in February 2023 (4).

• Hibs are winless in seven away league games (D5 L2); not since their final nine away games of 2013-14, when they were relegated, have they had a longer such run in the Scottish Premiership.

• St Johnstone’s Craig Levein has won each of his last three Scottish Premiership meetings with Hibs; he has never previously won four in a row against the Easter Road side in his top-flight managerial career.

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The Zander Clark game.

There's many things you could call St Johnstone's Scottish Cup quarter-final upset of Rangers at Ibrox in 2021, but one man made the headlines his on that April Sunday four years ago.

Callum Davidson's side looked to be down and out after James Tavernier scored in the 117th minute following the Perth outfit having battled to a goalless draw and extra time.

And then, St Johnstone got a corner with the clock at 122 minutes.

The ball in was headed on by Clark, who had charged forward from the opposite box, allowing Chris Kane to get the final touch and send the game to penalties.

If an assist wasn't enough for the now-Scotland international, Clark would save two Rangers spot-kicks from Tavernier and Kemar Roofe before Ali McCann sent the League Cup winners back to Hampden.

The rest, as they say, is history. Quite literally.