NEW DEALS ON WRIGHT TRACK
Boss confident chairman will tie up players
Joe Shaughnessy Tommy Wright is confident chairman Steve Brown can deliver Perth personnel on new deals. Talks are ongoing with several St Johnstone players who will be out of contract in the summer, with 12-goal attacker Danny Swanson and defender Joe Shaughnessy among those who have indicated they’re hoping to extend their stay at McDiarmid. Saints are preparing for a weekend home Scottish Cup tie with League One outfit Stenhousemuir after their three-week winter break.
And while no signatures are adorning fresh contracts yet, Wright is hopeful that deals will be sealed.
He said: “The chairman is working extremely hard to make things happen. We are in regular contact and he keeps me up to date on how things are going. It’s the same every year and I am comfortable where we are at the minute. We have more meetings arranged with agents this week.
“Joe has been made an improved offer. His father looks after him and we are waiting for him to get back to us. I think he has been on holiday.
“It’s just the nature of the game. It’s not like going into a shop, handing over the money and coming out with the goods. The process takes time. Danny Swanson
“Nothing has broken down and from what the chairman is telling me, there’s no reason why we can’t get to a reasonable position with the players we have been talking to at the minute.”
Swanson was floored by a flu bug and was kept away from McDiarmid Park last week as the squad returned to training after a short break.
Wright said: “We had a sickness bug going the rounds last week.
Pitlochry Weightlifting club member Jamie Kemp won his first Scottish title at the Scottish Schools Championships in Glasgow on Sunday.
Jamie snatched 28kg and clean and jerked 38kg for a 66 kg total to win the 77kg (U14) class. Unfortunately, owing to the bad weather, Holly Morrogh Bernard was unable to make it to the competition to defend her title. Danny and Murray Davidson were both kept away from the ground with the flu. Danny was off for four or five days, he was really bad. But they are both back in this week.
“Tam Scobbie hurt his ankle in training but he will join in again on Thursday. Ally Gilchrist has had another setback and is looking at another four weeks out.
“Liam Gordon is on loan to Peterhead but his calf has flared up and he didn’t play for them at the weekend. We will have to assess how long he is going to be out to be fair to Peterhead.”
Wright, currently sporting a beard being grown for the “Beards for Bairns” charity fundraiser, will join fellow managers and SPFL officials at a meeting being held today in Perth but the Ulsterman remains sceptical about the winter break.
He said: “The authorities will ask for feedback. I’d rather have a longer break in the summer. We don’t know if the break has been a benefit or not. In a perfect world it would have been nice to go away for a bit of warm-weather training but, like a lot of other clubs, we don’t have the budget for that and we are realists. I think only three or four of the 12 clubs got away.
“The players have had a week off and some went way on holiday, others stayed at home with their families.
“We were quite lucky here last week with the weather and were able to get the work done that we needed. And the attitude of the players was good.
“Ironically, after being off for three weeks, we are going into a period of five games in a fortnight. But now all our focus has to be on the cup tie with Stenhousemuir. Everything is geared towards that.”
The tie triggers painful memories for Perth fans, with Stenny inflicting a humiliating 4-0 replay defeat on Paul Sturrock’s Saints in 1995.