CALLUM DAVIDSON says that his St Johnstone players can be proud of their defence of the League Cup after being edged out in the semi-final against Celtic at Hampden.

The Saints manager was disappointed that his players failed to create many opportunities at the national stadium, but was delighted by the way in which his men limited Celtic to very few chances of their own.

And he says that had they been clinical, they may well have booked their place at their third domestic cup final in a row.

“I’m pretty proud of my players and the way they went about their business against a top team in Celtic who are on their way up at the moment,” Davidson said.

“If you’d asked me beforehand if we could limit Celtic to three or four chances I’d have snapped your hand off.

“The boys worked extremely hard, we tried to work off our shape and limit them.

“We could have used the ball better, we need to be more clinical. But I’m very proud. They have defended their trophy with a lot of pride and it’s credit to them that we are disappointed at losing a semi-final to Celtic.

“For me it was about performance. When you play a team of Celtic’s size and status you don’t want to be missing two or three of your main players.

“We didn’t play very well in the last game but we were back to our old selves today.”

Another downside to the day for Davidson was a potentially serious knee injury to David Wotherspoon, with the attacker going down off the ball at the start of the second half.

“He’s not great,” he said. “It’s not great when there’s nobody near a player. At first I thought it was a kick but it’s how he’s landed.

“We have already lost Stevie May for a long time, hopefully not David too. When you play against Celtic you need to be able to change your front three.

“I had a gameplan in my head but with Stevie and Glenn (Middleton) out and then David getting hurt we weren’t able to do that as we would have wanted.”