CALLUM DAVIDSON has admitted that St Johnstone have a fight on their hands to keep the core of their cup double winning squad this summer.
Saints defeated Hibernian at Hampden Park yesterday in the Scottish Cup final after already adding the League Cup to their trophy cabinet back in February.
Davidson’s men wrote their names into the Scottish football history books by becoming just the fourth team to record a cup double in the country.
And the McDiarmid Park boss now expects plenty of interest in his Perth stars ahead of their European campaign getting underway later this summer.
“What a fantastic achievement by my players, the backroom staff, the chairman and his family, the supporters and everybody involved with St Johnstone,” Davidson beamed.
“This is a special moment for the club and I’m delighted and grateful I’ve been in a position to lead them. It hasn’t sunk in and I don’t know when it will.
“The players probably don’t realise what they’ve done yet. People will be talking about this St Johnstone 2021 team for a long time. They’re a great bunch to work with. They go about their jobs on a daily basis really well and work so hard.
“My players have performed at a very high level on big occasions which says a lot. It will be hard for the club to hold on to them. That’s the business we’re in. Hopefully we only lose one or two.
“We need to make sure the ones who come through realise what these boys have done and meet those standards too. I’ve always said that players will get chances of big moves if they perform in big games.”
Saints were rocked by a Covid-19 outbreak in camp ahead of Saturday’s final and Davidson has praised the spirit of his players who remained upbeat despite a difficult period.
He continued: “It’s been really hard over the last couple of weeks. I’ve got to thank my medical team for getting us through it and making sure we made the right decisions.
“It gave us the chance to focus on winning this game as best we could – and we’ve done it. The players listen. And you can see the spirit they have.
“Things like the boys who have been watching games on Zoom while they’ve been out. We beat Rangers in the quarter-final and there were the four games at Hampden – we’ve only conceded one goal in those four.
“I can’t fault them. People talk about the back three but it’s not all down to them. It starts with the work-rate up front from the likes of Chris Kane, Stevie May and the others. We’ve got our success as a team.”
Asked where St Johnstone’s achievement ranks in Scottish football history, Davidson added: “It’s not for me to say where this ranks in terms of achievements. I’m not that type of person.
“I do know that only Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen have done it so it is a phenomenal achievement.
“I’ve really not got the words to describe it at the moment. I started at St Johnstone in 1994. I’ve gone, I’ve come back, I’ve gone and I’ve come back again. It’s a club that means so much to me and my family.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here