Amid the gaudy blur of numbers, words and bad ties on Sky Sports News was the Clydesdale Bank Premier League table. A table with St Johnstone at the bottom.
The manager was oblivious to the screen shot but not to the situation the Perth team finds themselves in after a sixth league game without victory.
The opening weeks of the campaign have been characterised by frustration – St Johnstone playing well without getting their rewards the running theme – but at the weekend McInnes’ dominant emotion was anger.
Anger at the referee for incorrectly awarding the penalty that put the hosts behind for the first time and anger at his players for yet more defensive failings.
Sixteen times their resistance has been breached in those opening six matches and looking at the goals they lost on Saturday it is understandable why.
While the spot-kick award was unjust, Dundee United players were allowed to win consecutive headers in the area before Dave Mackay’s apparently illegal intervention. The other two concessions were equally lax; Lee Wilkie easily brushing aside a pair of defenders to set up Andy Webster and Damian Casaliunovo being permitted to turn and shoot far too easily for the winner.
“If we keep conceding goals and have to go and score three or four to win a game it’s going to be tough, and that’s something we’ve really got to look at,” chirped Filipe Morais, St Johnstone’s cockney-Portuguese winger. “I’m not concerned at all and I hope the boys aren’t either, because we’re creating chances and we’ll get there if we stop conceding so many. If we can make ourselves hard to beat I’m sure we’ll do well.”
McInnes suggested that falling to the foot of the division could act as a catalyst, but it should also be noted his side have endured a reasonably tricky run – including games against United, Motherwell, Celtic and both Edinburgh clubs – and that they have played well in each.
In fact, it is a start that echoes the one suffered by Craig Levein’s side last term, when they failed to win their opening five encounters before going on to finish fifth. Their hopes of improving on that will be helped by wins like this, in which they did not play well but battled their way to three points.
The game also marked the restoration of David Goodwillie after a week he will wish to forget. Levein has given the 20-year-old striker one last chance to fulfil his undoubted potential after his latest bout of bampottery and was rewarded by an effervescent cameo in which he claimed – incorrectly, it proved – the winner.
“Goodie’s got great attributes and he’s only going to improve,” said Webster, who knows about the perils of potential. “I think he realises himself the situation he put himself in was not ideal. Not that it’s acceptable, but people make mistakes and he started to repay the fans and the team by getting back on the pitch and doing what he does best.”
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