Dave Mackay faces a lengthy spell on the St Johnstone sidelines in a bid to overcome his problematic hip injury. The Perth side's captain has been nursing the problem for a lengthy period of time but time has run out on not addressing the issue and he will undergo surgery in England at the end of the week. The veteran defender will miss the remaining two games of the season - he was suspended for the final game at Pittodrie in any case - but has also been ruled out of the best part of the opening two months of the next Scottish Premiership season. Mackay captained the Saints team that made history in beating Dundee United 2-00 in the 2014 Scottish Cup final to win the trophy for the first time in their history and made 42 appearances, scoring twice.
Manager Tommy Wright said: "This has been on the cards for a long time now and it was just a case of timing. There is a four month recovery period so we had to decide when was best in terms of the end of this campaign, the start of next and also when the surgery was available. He’ll be missed but will come back stronger and we have decent defensive cover for these last two matches of the season, the second of which he would have missed anyway after his booking at the weekend."