May craves second taste of success

ST JOHNSTONE striker Stevie May believes adding the Betfred Cup to the Scottish Cup would be “amazing” for the McDiarmid Park club and himself.

The 28-year-old (left) starred in the Saints side which won the 2014 Scottish Cup final with a 2-0 win over Dundee United at Celtic Park. It was the Perth club’s first major trophy and there is a chance to grab the other major national cup in Scotland when they face Livingston at Hampden tomorrow and May knows the significance of victory.

He said: “It would be amazing personally and obviously for the club. Going so long in the history of the club without winning anything and then to win two in a relatively short space of time would be huge.

“It is probably getting underestimated how big an achievement it would be. Another cup win for me would be massive.

Obviously winning the trophies would be by far the highlights of my career. The Scottish Cup itself was such a big thing at the time. It would be amazing to do that [again], for the fans as well as myself, and the younger players who are just starting out their careers.

“To get a trophy so early as I did would be really special for them as well. We have a chance, we have got ourselves here after some tough games.

“It is all to play for. It will be a tough game but we definitely have the belief in our abilities

and confidence the game.”

May believes the 3-0 win over Hibernian in the semi-final, as well as the 3-0 win over Motherwell at the weekend, will give the players added confidence.

“I said it at the time how well we did in that semi-final game,” he said. “It wasn’t as if it was a scrappy 1-0 win which you obviously would have taken at the time. We have played Livingston a few times this season and will work on a game plan that we think we can execute to win the game.”

to go and win

KILMARNOCK manager Tommy Wright has insisted that it is the next eight fixtures which will determine the Ayrshire club’s Premiership status and not the last eight, all of which have been lost (five of them under the previous incumbent, Alex Dyer).

His team hosts Dundee United this afternoon but Wright does not accept that they are running out of games in which to reverse their tailspin, preferring to focus on what might be rather than what has been.

“We’ve eight left and 24 points to play for,” he said. “We’re realistic: we need to start picking up points but the quality in the squad is there and they’ve proved that before.

“The number of matches isn’t a concern yet because there’s a lot of points for us to turn it around. The worry would be if we were relying on other people to lose when it gets down to the last two or three games.”

Killie failed to score in seven of those eight losses and Wright has already identified one of the reasons for their impotence.

“Everything has been positive since we came in,” he said. “The quality of training has been very good, but there was a tendency, even in training, for people not to take responsibility and have a shot at goal so we’ve tried to encourage that.

“What we do on the training pitch is all geared towards trying to win games and, obviously, a huge part of that is scoring goals.

“The truth is I’ve been impressed by the quality of the players and the quality of their work in training. But being able to do the basics well enough to win matches is also a quality and we’ve not done that often enough this season, hence the position that we’re in.

“It’s not just the three games I’ve been here, it’s been throughout the season.”