Just a day after the crushing news of Stevie May’s injury for St Johnstone, another major issue has developed with Glenn Middleton now a doubt to face Celtic on Saturday.
St Johnstone will clash with the Hoops in the Premier Sports Cup semi-finals this weekend at Hampden. But it looks as though they’ll be doing so with some big injury problems.
On Monday night, manager Callum Davidson revealed that top striker May will be out until Christmas through injury [The Courier]. And now it appears another issue has occurred after Middleton came off for Scotland U21s last night with a hamstring issue.
The on-loan Rangers talent came off after an hour and looked to be in some discomfort. Speaking after the match in comments published by the Courier, U21 boss Scott Gemmill made the following remark:
“I honestly don’t know at the moment. Glenn thinks he has pulled his hamstring. However, that is unconfirmed.”
Middleton’s absence would cause a severe striking issue for Davidson this weekend.
Stevie May and Glenn Middleton both potentially out for Celtic clash
Make no mistake, if you take both May and Middleton out of St Johnstone’s front-line, that’s a lot of threat that’s being removed. Perhaps more pertinently, it’s a lot of energy being taken out of their attackers too.
Saints will be looking to hit Celtic on the break on Saturday. Middleton is a massive part of that given how good a ball-carrier he is. The on-loan Ibrox man is perhaps the paciest forward player St Johnstone have in their ranks. They’ll struggle to replace him effectively if he is indeed out.
The fact the player believes he’s pulled a hamstring is even more concerning from a St Johnstone perspective. It may be unconfirmed as of yet, but Middleton has had enough injury issues to know when he’s pulled a particular part of his body.
St Johnstone do still have the likes of Kane and Michael O’Halloran available to them. They’ll offer their own threat as they look to harry the Celtic defence this weekend. But the truth of the matter is that neither man is as dangerous as Middleton and May.
You have to imagine both of them would’ve started if fit. There’s still time for Middleton of course, but he’ll need to make a swift recovery given the game is in 3 days.
The next 72 hours could be extremely interesting as we await further injury news.
In other news, Promising footage of injured Celtic player emerges; classy gesture caught on camera
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