St Johnstone chief Gus MacPherson has slapped down Michael Beale for his 'cowfield’ jibe at the McDiarmid Park pitch.
Saints’ head of football operations was unimpressed by comments from Beale after Rangers edged a Scottish Cup tie 1-0 at Perth – six days after a slog on the Hampden surface against Aberdeen. Ibrox captain James Tavernier went on to claim poor surfaces were damaging the Scottish game’s image.
MacPherson had words about the criticism when Saints and Rangers renewed rivalry a week later at Ibrox in the Premiership. The St Mirren and Morton boss said: “There was a lot of criticism from the Rangers side after the game here. Personally, I thought that was very, very unprofessional. I did remark on that the following week when we played them at Ibrox." However, MacPherson did concede a fix was required. And he pledged that plans are well under way to improve the pitch for next season.I did have a joke with some of the players but it's just impossible to improve it at this period of the year. Celtic at home was one of my first games here in early November.
“Even at that point, you could see it kicking out so we knew it was going to be an issue by January. We’ve tried to protect it as long as we could. There’s nobody to blame. The adverse weather has been a big factor. What one of the maintenance guys was able to put in front of us was staggering. That couple of games ago, he told us it had lost 30 per cent of its grass cover.
It’s a continuous battle to get it manageable. It needs work done to it, it’s as simple as that. It’s a basic fact that there is no growth from about November to March. You might see a slight difference after that but it won’t be until the summer that you see a proper improvement.
"Without a doubt, that work will happen in the summer. We’re already in that process to get our slot. For a number of years there hasn’t been a maintenance programme. The club hasn’t had the time to do it for a variety of reasons – European football and then the play-offs being two of them.”
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