Talking point

The fact that the gap between third and fourth is less than fourth to fifth is an indicator of how successful this season has been for St Johnstone. If it is trimmed to just three when the book closes on 2016-17, that will be another one. closer to Rangers and third place if we hadn’t lost at Ibrox to a late goal but I don’t see it that way.

“That happened and you deal with it. You can’t change anything. I don’t deal in ‘what ifs.’ You win, lose or draw and get the number of points you deserve.

“Rangers have got more points than us so they deserve to be third. That’s the bottom line.

“We have deserved to finish fourth. There was a lot of talking before the Hearts game in midweek that they were putting marker down. I didn’t see too many marks on us after the game.

“It’s better to do your talking on the pitch rather than off it.”

Saints have already amassed a record points total in the top flight thanks to the midweek defeat of Hearts, and they could now go past Rangers in Pedro Caixhina’s own “internal league” with a Sunday win at McDiarmid.

But that hasn’t even registered with Wright. He said: “Managers have their own little ways of trying to be positive about their situation.

“If Pedro is creating an internal league and feels he has done well enough since coming here he’s perfectly entitled to his opinion. But a league is over 38 games and from our point of view we have done brilliantly.

“There are folk who say finishing fourth isn’t a great achievement for us and maybe they are criticising Rangers for being third.

“But Rangers have done well coming up into the league. Of course they will be disappointed not to be in second place but they still have good players and they are a difficult side to beat.

“They will be looking for improvement next year but I think they have had a reasonably good season getting third and European football, for a promoted side.

“I don’t know the relative budgets and exact figures but I read that Rangers’ average salary was £300,000 while ours was less than £50,000.

“Of course there is a disparity in the finances. Celtic are way ahead of everybody, maybe even double that of Rangers.

“Aberdeen are also way ahead of us but football matches aren’t always won on the value of your players and what you pay them. We have bucked that trend season in, season out.

“We have David Wotherspoon and Danny Swanson suspended so we can’t make many changes.

“But we will be as strong as possible.”