Callum Davidson admits Andy Considine’s red card ruined his day after St Johnstone’s fighting show against Celtic.
The Perth boss was frustrated at the injury-time dismissal of the centre-back. Considine was shown a straight red card by ref David Dickinson for tugging back Celtic sub Oh Hyeon-gyu and now misses the vital Premiership game against Dundee United on Saturday week. Davidson said: “Celtic can sometimes open you up, but they had three chances and scored three.
“It was a wee bit hard to take for the players, but they didn’t put their heads down. We got a great goal from Drey [Wright]. In the second half I said can we stay in the game? Can we ask questions? I thought we did that. Then there was a goal at the end and Andy’s sending off, that annoyed me a little bit. Not just because of the game, but because of next week where we will miss Andy. As a player, you don’t think like that. But as a manager you think of bigger pictures. I thought that put a dampener on it. I haven’t really seen the red card back. He’s pulled his jersey, but I don’t know who’s coming covering.
“I was a wee bit disappointed in that. I thought the last goal could have been offside, but he [referee] was quite eager to book my players and send them off, so I knew I wasn’t going to get that decision.”
Asked if he’d consider an appeal, he added: “I think you can, but I’d need to look at it. I haven’t looked at it properly. It did look like he did pull his jersey, but there’s players around him.”
Despite that annoyance, Davidson is adamant that he saw good things. Saints had a couple of half-chances in the second period before Turnbull’s fourth.
He added: “There were a lot of positives. We changed the system and I thought the boys did really well. You don’t really get the chance to put the ball in the box against Celtic, but I think we did that quite a lot without much joy.
“That was probably the biggest disappointment. In the second half, we have a couple of great chances, but against Celtic you are not going to dominate the ball or force the issue So I’m pretty proud of my players and how they went about their business. A couple of goals could have been better,
“I still take a lot of positives. Against a very good team I thought we did well. When we tried to press them high, they could open you up, but I thought we got the balance okay, especially in the second half.”
Saints lost no ground in the survival fight and Davidson, who handed a debut to Zak Rudden off the bench, said: “My first thought is safety first. I think we’ve got eight games to get as many points as we can before the split.
“We don’t have the Old Firm, so every game is winnable alright. They are all loose-able to. What we’ve shown in the last four games, the two Rangers games, Motherwell and here is there’s a lot to be positive about.
“There are a lot of players starting to hit a bit of form who are like new players. Cammy MacPherson, Dan Phillips. These kind of guys who haven’t really been involved. So I’m really pleased about that.”
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