St Johnstone at crossroads as Callum Davidson exit, impending sale and relegation fears make for uncertain future

All good things must come to an end, so the saying goes. That is very much the case with St Johnstone and Callum Davidson.

A match made in heaven for half of his three-year tenure, the last few months of his time at McDiarmid Park have been hellish. Two wins out of 16 matches across all competitions have left the Perth club just five points above the relegation zone. Last weekend’s 2-0 loss at home to fellow strugglers Ross County set the alarm bells ringing and following Saturday’s defeat by Livingston, it felt like a parting of the ways was inevitable. St Johnstone look like a team hurtling towards the drop and its hierarchy have decided to act.

Chairman Steve Brown said it was an “extremely difficult decision to come to”. Davidson will always be a St Johnstone legend after guiding the club to one of the most astonishing achievements in Scottish football history in winning both the League and Scottish Cup in the 2020/21 campaign. As a player many moons ago, he made the club money by moving to Blackburn Rovers. But those days feel like an eternity ago. The Saints managed to survive last season by beating Inverness in the play-offs. Part of the team’s decline in season 2021/22 was attributed to last-minute sales of players such as Ali McCann and Jason Kerr and haphazard recruitment. There can be no such excuses this time.

Sure, more recent departures of stalwarts such as Shaun Rooney and Zander Clark have diluted the quality of St Johnstone’s squad but this season, they have always looked like a team toiling to find stability. Three wins in a row between October and November, against Hibs, Kilmarnock and Rangers, were an aberration rather than the norm. One clean sheet in 2023 shows where the biggest problem lies, a team unable to keep the door shut.

Callum Davidson deep in thought during St Johnstone's 2-0 defeat to Livingston which proved to be his final match in charge. (Photo by Roddy Scott / SNS Group)

It falls on first-team coach Steven McLean – part of Davidson’s staff – to try and pull St Johnstone out of the quicksand. The former Hearts and Aberdeen forward was a spiky character on the pitch and doesn’t pull punches. But this is his first stint in the hotseat. Brown and his fellow directors will desperately be hoping that he can spark a revival, like what has happened at Motherwell, who were not so long ago in the same predicament before Stuart Kettlewell salvaged them.

Hibs visit Perth this coming Saturday and then it’s five matches against the rest of the teams in the bottom six. Having come so close to relegation in the last campaign, the thought of the play-offs or even direct demotion is unthinkable for a St Johnstone fanbase that less than two years ago were celebrating cup triumphs and goals against Galatasaray in Istanbul. It is an awful scenario for Brown, too, who is in the midst of trying to sell the club before he steps down at the end of the season. It has been hard to find the correct buyer but now in advanced talks with an American consortium, the risk of relegation spooking any investors must also be a factor.

Davidson’s stock has diminished too. Not that long ago he was right in the mix for landing the top job at Preston North End, just losing out to Ryan Lowe. That feels like a sliding doors moment for the 46-year-old, who has barely been linked with another post since. There will surely be another opportunity given what he has achieved in the past.

St Johnstone have to take any that come their way on the pitch, for they are now shrouded in uncertainty: no permanent manager, an outgoing chairman and their league status in limbo.