Max Kucheriavyi bagged a brace from the bench as St Johnstone came from two goals behind to rescue a point against Dundee in this afternoon’s Tayside derby.
The Ukranian’s quickfire double, including a 96th minute equaliser, earned the Saints a draw after headers from Amadou Bakayoko and Rickie Lamie put the visitors two ahead.
Dundee boss Tony Docherty could not believe that his side didn’t leave Perth with a victory after missing a multitude of chances at 2-0 up. He said:
“I’m shocked, I’m left speechless and it’s not often I’m speechless… we’ve got opportunities to make it 3 or 4-0 and I think that would’ve been an accurate reflection on the balance of play.
“But do you know what? You need to do your job. You need to make sure when you’re in that position that you score the goal and when you’re asked questions about defending, you need to defend properly.
“Massively two points dropped, but when the dust settles there’s so much I can be pleased about in terms of the performance, particularly going forward.
“I thought we looked a proper outfit today; I can’t be too hard on the boys but we need to learn.
“I said after the St Mirren game as well that this is a punishing league this and if you allow anybody opportunities, you’ll get punished so we need to learn from that.”
Saints boss Steven MacLean recognises that his side were far from their best today but he was relieved to avoid defeat and earn a second consecutive draw ahead of the upcoming international break. He added:
“We were poor today, I’m not going to lie, but when you’re poor and you get a result like that, it’s good.
“We could’ve scored another goal and for as poor as we were, we lost two goals from set plays and that’s not acceptable as well.
“It wasn’t open play goals; it was two set plays. But listen, I’m delighted with the point in the end.”
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