IT must annoy Tommy Wright to hear people say St Johnstone are punching above their weight. They aren’t. Having clinched a place in the top half of the table after the split for a sixth season in a row, this is where they belong. Only Celtic can lay claim to a better record over the same timeframe which shows just how consistent St Johnstone have become. Throw in a Scottish Cup win and regular European football and this must be considered a real golden era for the club.
The secret to their success seems to be their continuity. It stands in stark contrast to Hearts, the side they beat on Wednesday night to move five points clear in fourth place in the table. While Ian Cathro went for wholesale changes to his squad in the January window to little positive effect so far, St Johnstone have stuck with the tried and tested and it continues to serve them well. The manager extracts every single ounce of effort out of his players and you just get that feeling that they want to do well for him.
He never asks them to do anything they wouldn’t be comfortable doing. There is little fancy or ostentatious about how they play – it’s just as you see it. It’s about hard graft, organisation, togetherness, and team spirit. Those are the attributes that continue to bring them success.
They have players who make them a more formidable force when they are in the side but their real strength is in the collective and working together. Perhaps some of his players took battling for the cause too far in the recent on-field dust-up between Danny Swanson and Richard Foster but even that incident has done little to derail their momentum. Wright dealt with the manner with typical professionalism and calm. It is the only match they haven’t won in their last four and you can imagine if they had kept 11 men on the field at Hamilton they would have won that one, too.
Tommy’s most recent predecessors at McDiarmid Park – Steve Lomas, Owen Coyle and Derek McInnes – all used the job as a platform to earn a bigger move to England and it remains something of a mystery that Wright hasn’t been similarly targeted by clubs down south. Perhaps it is the quiet, unflashy way he goes about his business but he has definitely achieved plenty on a fairly small budget to suggest he is worthy of a crack at a Championship club down south. You can only imagine there must be some monitoring his progress and considering giving him that opportunity. Tommy doesn’t seem in any huge rush to leave but like all managers he will be ambitious and at some point will surely fancy testing himself at a higher level.
St Johnstone, of course, will be hoping that day never comes. Under Wright they have evolved into one of the steadiest and most reliable sides in the country. The Northern Irishman said recently that finishing fourth would be “like winning the title” and, while that would rank as a terrific achievement, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be targeting third over the remaining games.
Rangers have stumbled a bit in recent weeks under Pedro Caixinha and with St Johnstone just six points behind I’d be amazed if Tommy wasn’t telling his players in private that they should be looking to overhaul the Ibrox side over the last seven matches. That is a target worth aiming at.
There is vast experience throughout the St Johnstone side. Steven MacLean was a kid at Rangers when I was there and then we later played together at Cardiff City. I think he is one of the most under-rated strikers in the division. There are certainly few better when it comes to link-up play and bringing others into the game. He’s more than just a goalscorer, although he does that side of things pretty well too.
Steven Anderson was a team-mate of mine at Dundee United, while I played with Brian Easton at Burnley and both are terrific defenders, and wholly reliable. It is a theme that runs right through the St Johnstone side. And they are all leaders on the park as well.
Should Wright stay beyond the summer you don’t envisage him making wholesale changes to his squad. He has no need to do so. Again contrast that with Cathro who, just five months after ripping things up in January, will need to do so again in the close season. Making so many changes too often is rarely a recipe for success. It is no surprise that a side as consistent as St Johnstone are reaping the benefits of a steadier approach.
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