St Johnstone sweating over Murray Davidson’s Scottish Cup final fitness

Callum Davidson refused to point the finger at Kemar Roofe after the Rangers striker’s late challenge left St Johnstone midfielder Murray Davidson facing a Betfred Cup final injury sweat.

Perth stalwart Davidson limped from the field as Steven Gerrard’s 100th win as Rangers manager brought a first title in ten years one step closer.

A fine goal from Ianis Hagi seven minutes into the second half restored a 23-point lead over second place Celtic and moved the Ibrox side to within six wins of the title.

Callum Davidson refused to point the finger at Kemar Roofe for his late challenge

A gutsy St Johnstone display ended in fears over Davidson’s involvement in the Hampden final against Livingston after Roofe escaped a straight red card for planting his studs late in the midfielder’s ankle after 21 minutes.

‘It’s one of those,’ said Saints boss Callum Davidson. ‘I don’t think there was any malice in the challenge, but it doesn’t look great.

‘TV pictures will slow it down and make it look worse than it is.

‘The only thing I know is that I have lost my player from the resulting challenge. It’s not great.

‘It’s a concern with the cup final coming up. I don’t know if he needs a scan, I will know more in the morning.

‘It’s one of those, probably the decisions didn’t quite go for us today. Little things in the game that could have helped us out.

‘When you come to Ibrox you need that little bit of luck and the decisions to go for you.

‘All I can do is credit my players. They showed drive in the last 25 minutes of the game.’

In for the suspended Alfredo Morelos after the Colombian was handed a three match retrospective ban by the SFA, Roofe will escape the same fate after earning a booking for the incident.

Davidson is left sweating over midfielder Murray Davidson’s fitness for Scottish Cup final

‘I thought the referee had a good view of the situation and taking into account the player, knowing the player and the type of player that he is, I think the referee seen it as a yellow,’ said Rangers assistant manager Gary MacAllister. ‘He mis controlled it, tried to retrieve it and the referee has seen it as a yellow.’

Relieved to move another step closer to the title after a tough night against on-form opponents the Ibrox number two said: ‘I thought in periods of the game we played some good stuff and created good chances but we weren’t as clinical as we like to be.

‘I think you can see the reasons why St Johnstone are on a good run and are in a cup final.

‘They are very well drilled, their organisation is excellent and come the end of the game they threw some forwards at it to try and get a result. It was tough but I thought we edged it and it was a special goal to separate the two teams. I thought Ianis was excellent on the night and it was a nice goal.’

Saints boss Davidson saw his team’s pre-match run of seven games unbeaten fall, but took positives from the way his side performed against the champions elect.

‘In the first half I thought my boys worked really hard, Rangers had a couple of really good chances to score.

‘It’s funny, you come Ibrox and sometimes your keeper is having to make save after save, but Zander didn’t have a save to make and that speaks volumes for the work-rate of my players.

‘Once we went a goal down I thought the reaction was tremendous. The showed great character and we could have got something at the end,’