
First Team
Johnstone club's fourth summer signing
31st July 2019
The club is delighted to announce the signing of 20-year-old goalkeeper Max Johnstone on a one-year-deal.
Max spent time with the squad over in Northern Ireland and joins the goalkeeping ranks at the club after Ross Sinclair joined Brechin City on a season-long-loan.
The younger brother of West Bromwich Albion 'keeper Sam Johnstone, his Dad Glenn was also a professional goalkeeper and Max joined up with his new teammates for training on Wednesday.
He joins the club having spent last season with Sunderland playing in their U23 squad and he also lists Manchester Utd among his former clubs.
Speaking to the club's official website shortly after putting pen to paper, Max said he was looking forward to be working in a first-team environment at Saints.
"It's great to here and I'm buzzing to sign for St. Johnstone," Max said.
"I've been in with the first-team past few days and I'm really looking forward to getting started.
"I'm looking to kick on now working with Paul Mathers, Zander, Elliott and the rest of the guys. I think it's what I need now to step up and improve and hopefully it's going to be a good year.
"The lads have made me feel really welcome and so has the Manager and his coaching staff. The fact I'm working around the first-team is going to be a great benefit to me and it felt like the right move.
"It's a very good standard and I'm going to have to work really hard but hopefully I can push Zander and Elliott to improve and improve my own game in the process."
The Manager also spoke to the website about his latest recruit, saying: "Max had been over in Northern Ireland with us during pre-season and he did extremely well.
"He had a couple of other trials arranged down in England and I think he was in at Leeds for a bit but we kept in touch with him and his agent about the potential for him to come here.
"We're delighted to get him in. He's got good technique and you can tell he's been well coached at his previous clubs. One of the important factors when we spoke to him was that he was going to be in and around the first-team here and that's important.
"Down in England younger players don't get as much contact with the first-team because their squads are so big. Although there's not going to be much game time being around senior players and training with them everyday will be good for his development.
"He's only one injury away from being on the first-team bench and it's great now that we have three young goalkeepers at the club - Max, Ross Sinclair and Jack Wills - who we can develop in the years to come."