Saints' march has not gone unnoticed but who is our SPFL player of the month for August?

Standing between the posts is often a thankless task in Scottish football. Yet when we look at how many saves each goalkeeper makes before he concedes, we can decipher which of the 12 shot-stoppers on show each weekend is the most efficient.

This season, Hamilton’s Gary Woods makes an average of 3.8 saves before Martin Canning’s side give up a goal, while Kilmarnock’s Jamie MacDonald and Celtic’s Craig Gordon have both made three saves before conceding.

However, standing tall on 5.33 saves is St Johnstone’s Alan Mannus. The Saints goalkeeper’s stats are slightly inflated by the eight saves he made at Celtic Park last weekend, but each of those were chances which could have seen Celtic take the lead. His side left that game with a point and it was largely thanks to his heroics in goal.

Defenders

Although Celtic’s defensive record is the best in the league, Brendan Rodgers has gone to great pains to chop and change his backline from one game to the next. Therefore, no defensive player has excelled for the champions over the past four weeks.

The best defensive unit in the league has, in fact, been Tommy Wright’s St Johnstone rearguard and at the heart

of that lies central defender Joe Shaughnessy – a player who is not only outshining his team-mates, but also the rest of the Premiership’s top defenders. In the first four league games of the season, Shaughnessy, on average per game, intercepted the ball 8.7 times and competed in 9.1 aerial duels. Both those statistics are higher than any other defender, aside from his team-mate Steven Anderson, who is averaging 9.5 aerial duels per game.

Midfielders

After four weeks, the Premiership is sitting on an impressive three-goals-per-game ratio. But which midfielders are pulling the strings and setting up the goals that win matches?

Although Rangers midfielder Graham Dorrans already has two goals to his name, in terms of creating goalscoring chances for team-mates it’s actually Hibernian’s John McGinn who has bagged more key passes than any other midfielder so far. Although Neil Lennon’s side have some work to do in defence, they can rest assured the attacking engine should continue ticking over as long as McGinn remains in the centre of the park.

Forwards

Defining a forward in the Scottish Premiership as any player who is primarily used as a goalscorer in the opponent’s final third, we find ourselves including a number of players who could be perceived as midfielders.

Celtic’s Callum McGregor continues his stellar rise with three goals already this season – a tally that technically makes him Celtic’s most prolific player in front of goal in the league.

Yet August’s forward of the month is undoubtedly another St Johnstone player, Michael O’Halloran, who has returned to Perth on loan with an axe to grind and has duly set about outgunning teams almost single-handedly.

At his current rate, the Rangers “flop” is scoring a goal for St Johnstone in every 72 minutes of football. That is twice as often as Motherwell’s Louis Moult and Hibs’ Anthony Stokes.

Player of the month

In terms of picking one, stand-out performer from the first month of Premiership action it’s hard to look beyond Michael O'Halloran as evidenced in the two first two diagrams. Although it’s tricky to objectively compare a winger’s contributions to the rest of the team, the 24-year-old’s four goals in the league have directly resulted in his club picking up an extra six points – that’s half of their points total so far this season. The other diagrams detail Joe Shaughnessy and John McGinn’s contributions for the month.