Levein on Ikpeazu injury blow, new defenders and goalkeeping decisions

St Johnstone boss Craig Levein has been speaking ahead of the club’s pre-season trip north to face Nairn County and Huntly this weekend. Here are some of the highlights.

• Wants to see how young goalkeepers Josh Rae, Ross Sinclair and Craig Hepburn perform in preseason “before I make a final decision about whether we want a more experienced goalkeeper”

• Uche Ikpeazu will miss the first three months of the season after suffering a household accident which has left him requiring knee surgery.

• Josh McPake had “lost his way a bit” after his early days at Rangers, but Levein feels “there's obviously talent there, it's just about whether he's got determination and drive to make his career as good as it can possibly be”

• The club are targeting more central defenders to sign in the next few weeks after adding Jack Sanders to the squad.

• He’s pleased with what he’s seen from pre-season so far, and feels “if you miss preseason it's always difficult to catch up”.

• The pre-season games will see him “play one team for an hour on Friday, then a new team for the last half hour, then flip them around on the Saturday.

• He will take young players up to bolster the squad this weekend in case of injuries but ‘hopefully I wont have to use them’.