KANO SENT SOUTH Perth pair on loan as Wright eyes a striker
Wright wants Kane playing regularly St Johnstone’s Chris Kane has joined Queen of the South on loan - and manager Tommy Wright now hopes to add another striker.
Kane makes the move to Dumfries alongside promising Perth defender Jason Kerr until January with the Saints boss wanting the pair to be playing more regularly.
With space freed-up in the squad, Wright hopes to land one of his forward targets. Conor Sammon of Hearts and Aberdeen’s Miles Storey have been on the radar.
“We have let Chris and Jason Kerr go to Queen of the South,” Wright told the Perthshire Advertiser.
“Chris has just signed a new twoyear deal and his future is at this club. But I just feel he needs to be playing regularly at this stage for his development.
“It suits us to send him out and get games, he had a stop-start season last year with injury so didn’t get the games I would have liked for him.
“Also, getting two players out will hopefully free up some money. It’s about economics as well and hopefully it will help us get someone in.”
Saints welcome Motherwell to McDiarmid Park tomorrow and Wright is looking for his squad to sharpen up after Tuesday’s 3-0 Betfred Cup defeat against Partick.
“We need to defend better than we did on Tuesday night, that’s for sure,” Wright said. “We lost bad goals from mistakes. It was a soft penalty, the right decision, but from our point of view it was a soft one to concede.
“The second was a great goal but the third was a long punt up the park which we should have dealt with better.
“So there is a lot of improvement on that score but we also need to be better at the other end.
“We had loads of chances, some really good ones, and had something like ten corners.
“So we need to be better in front of goal because on chances it really should have been at least 3-3 the other night.
“At this level you have to take them but we didn’t do that and paid the price for it.
“The scoreline suggests we got a right doing, which it was in terms of the scoreline, but from our point of view we have to look at the chances we created.
“Poor finishing let us down, we should have scored a few goals.
“So we need to tidy up at both ends of the pitch this weekend.”
Wright has been impressed with Motherwell after watching them in action against Rangers and then Ross County during the week.
The Northern Irishman said: “I have been at Motherwell’s last two matches and thought they were excellent in both.
“Stephen has recruited very well over the summer, they have a good work ethic and quality in the wider areas.
“In Louis Moult they have an excellent striker who is in demand but I’m sure they will want to hold on to him.
“They have a good physical presence about them, they get the ball into the wide areas and they put it into the box.
“They do a lot of the things I like in a team so I expect them to have a good season.
“We are expecting a tough game this weekend.
“Getting into the top six is difficult and it’s early days, it’s not my place to make predictions but I think Motherwell have certainly made inroads.
“They have brought in good players and look a strong outfit.”
Wright expects to have a strong squad at his disposal this weekend, with Stefan Scougall set to return to starting duties.
“Stefan missed a chunk of pre-season so it would have been a risk to play him Saturday, Tuesday and then Saturday again,” Wright said.
“I thought he did well when he came on and Michael O’Halloran will improve for getting 90 minutes under his belt because he’s not played for a long time.
“Paul Paton comes back into the squad after his ban as well, so we have a strong squad.”