Evening Telegraph (First Edition)

Saints legend May could be departing

STEVIE May’s long and illustriou­s St Johnstone career looks to be coming to an end.

And Perth boss Craig Levein has confirmed he plans to use any money he can free up by letting the 31-year-old leave to strengthen parts of his squad that are in need of attention.

Levein is happy with his attacking options but hopes to make further recruits in defence, midfield and out wide.

May, who came through the Mcdiarmid Park academy and has been part of all three cupwinning sides over the last decade, has one year left on his current deal.

But the former Scotland internatio­nal, linked earlier this week with Raith Rovers, has been told his “game time would be limited” if he sees that contract out.

“If you look at our squad, the area where we’re best covered is our frontline,” said Levein.

“We’ve got Benji (Kimpioka), Adama (Sidibeh), Uche (Ikpeazu), Nicky (Clark) and Makenzie (Kirk). It’s an area where we’re really strong.

“I’ve had a conversati­on with Stevie to say that his game time is probably going to be quite limited. He’s been here a long time and is very well respected.

“I’ve got a great deal of respect for Stevie. It’s just the circumstan­ces – I need to get some money back to allow me to do some of the things I need to do.

“These conversati­ons are never nice and they can go sour at times but Stevie has been great. He was quite understand­ing about the situation. I need to try and generate money from somewhere.”

On the broader recruitmen­t picture, Levein addressed the topic of “Premiershi­p-ready” signings and Saints missing out on them.

“I think we do need experience but the experience­d players are more expensive,” he explained. “That’s the thing.

“Whether we can get what we’re looking for with the money that we’ve got, I’m not sure.

“We don’t pay the sort of money that all these guys are looking for.

“That’s why we’ve done things a bit differentl­y and tried to recruit from different places.

“We can’t compete with some of the teams round about us.

“We’ve missed out on quite a few.

“Listen, I knew the difficulti­es when I took the job so I’m not complainin­g about it.

“And I think we’ve made some good signings.

“We’ve got Uche and Nicky to come back into the equation, as well as Kyle (Cameron).

“That’s three very experience­d players.

“We still want to do certain things in certain positions but I’m OK with where we are at the moment.”

Meanwhile, Levein confirmed that Aaron Essel’s two-match ban for his red card at Alloa won’t keep him out of the Premiershi­p opener a week on Monday.

“This year suspension­s are competitio­n specific so that means Aaron will miss tomorrow’s game and the next round if we go through,” he said.

“But it means we’ll have him for the Aberdeen game.

“We’ve had a chat about his sending off – he was a wee bit impetuous, especially five yards away from the linesman.

“In different countries there are different levels of tolerance and he’s maybe come from a league where the tolerance is quite high.”

Following their midweek slip-up it’s a case of Saints needing to beat East Fife on Saturday and then hoping that Alloa are either defeated by Morton or draw and lose a penalty shootout.

“I was in two minds before the game about whether to make changes,” said Levein, looking back at the Alloa team selection which backfired.

“Leaving Drey (Wright) was an easy one because it was an artificial pitch, three games in a week and he’s had bother with his knees.

“Younger players have grown up playing on astroturf so I thought it might be the right option.

“It’s proven to not be the right option – the result tells you that.

“It was a bizarre game – I don’t think I’ll ever see some of the things that happened again.

“Things conspired against us to a degree but we certainly didn’t help ourselves with our decision-making.

“We were responsibl­e for our own downfall, even though we had good chances to win the game. But it’s done.

“We can still qualify for the next round and we have to play well tomorrow, win the game and hope things go our way at other places.”

Levein hopes Cameron and Sam Mcclelland will both be available.