Davidson heaps praise on Clark for denying Dundee United

St Johnstone boss Callum Davidson heaped praise on Zander Clark after his man-of-the-match performance in a 1-0 cinch Premiership victory against Dundee United at Tannadice.

The 29-year-old produced a string of outstanding saves to deny the home side after Ali Crawford scored what proved to be the only goal of the game in the first half.

Clark missed out on a call-up to the last Scotland squad and his manager admitted he deserves enormous credit for responding in the right way and not letting his head go down.

Davidson said: “First half, I thought we were excellent and pressed really high up.

“Zander was outstanding, some of the saves were phenomenal. He has been like that since I’ve been here.

“All credit to him because he didn’t let his head go down when he didn’t get back in the Scotland squad.

“I think if any manager is watching that today, they’ll think it was a decent performance.

“Zander reacted to it the right way. I told him to keep performing at a high level and he’s doing that.

“He’s done it in big games against big teams. He made saves at big stages of the game for us today.

“A lot of the boys were tired in the last 15 minutes but he produced some phenomenal saves to get us three points.”

Davidson added: “It was also a fantastic finish from Ali.

“It is good to see him get a consistent run of games and hopefully keep himself fit.

“If he produces moments like that, I will be delighted.”

Davidson’s opposite number Tam Courts graciously admitted that Clark deserved credit for his outstanding performance, with United missing out on the chance to go level with Rangers at the top of the league.

Courts said: “A couple of the players had said it was almost un-human-like.

“We’ve seen Benji Siegrist do that for us too. We’ve got a keeper who can turn one point into three and I’ve seen Craig Gordon do that too.

“All credit to Zander Clark for his performance and it gave us an indication for our attacking intent in the second half.

“I think there were two or three moments at the end you could see the exasperation on our players’ faces because they’ve made clean contact and made the right decision, but the big man made a few tremendous saves and kept his team in front so he deserves all the credit.”