The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Saints full of confidence for Ibrox clash: Wright
Boss ponders line-up changes, but expects positive result
It will be a St Johnstone team full of confidence that heads to Ibrox tomorrow night, according to Tommy Wright.
The Perth boss will consider tweaking his starting line-up for the middle match of a three-game spell in the space of six days.
But, whichever side faces Rangers, it will be one he believes is capable of getting a positive result.
Wright said: “There are no fresh injury worries and that means we can freshen things up for Wednesday or Saturday if we feel we need it.
“I would imagine Rangers will go back to their usual set-up for this game.
“They obviously felt they had to tweak it a bit against Celtic after the 5-1 defeat but Rangers are at home and I expect them to be full on and back to their normal system.
“We are in good form, winning four out of six and we are in a good position. So we go to Ibrox with a good degree of confidence.
“We are also in a good vein of form with regard to performance levels.
“We have only conceded 10 goals and four of them were against Celtic.
“We are solid. We would like to have scored more but we have retained the ball well and we have to do that against Rangers.
“We can go there with a fair degree of optimism for what is going to be a difficult game. They will know it is going to be difficult for them as well.”
Saints beat Rangers in the League Cup last season but Wright insisted: “It doesn’t matter what happened last year.
He added: “You know you have to play well, defend well and make sure you keep the ball.
“We did that in the League Cup last season and against the bigger teams. We didn’t do it against Celtic this season and ended up taking a bit of a doing.
“Rangers have raised the bar in terms of their squad because they knew they were coming into a tougher environment.
“Apart from Brendan at Celtic every other manager in the league would be envious of the path of recruitment Rangers had in the summer.
“They can go and spend £1.8 million or whatever it was on a striker like Joel Garner.
“They are a massive club and have strengthened, bringing in experience and good young players which augurs well for the future at Rangers.
“But we always feel we can match anyone.
“We are ahead of where we were last year in terms of points and performances.
“We are happy with where we are but we can’t relax. We have to keep doing the right things and continue to pick up points.”
St Johnstone midfielder Danny Swanson should be in Scotland boss Gordon Strachan’s thoughts after making a sparkling start to the season.
That is the opinion of Saints captain Steven Anderson, who saw Swanson put in a man-ofthe-match performance against Dundee at McDiarmid Park on Sunday.
The former Dundee United man was at the centre of all that was good about the Perth club’s play in the 2-1 win over the Dark Blues.
He produced a box of tricks to create chance after chance, and topped it all off by scoring from the penalty spot.
Swanson, then at Tannadice, appeared to be on the brink of a cap when he was called up in October 2011 by Craig Levein for the Euro 2012 qualifiers against Liechtenstein and Spain.
He didn’t feature but was subsequently in line to face Cyprus in a friendly the following month. However, a medial ligament injury scuppered his chances of representing his country.
Now he deserves another chance, according to Anderson.
“Danny gives us that extra bit of creativity,” said the Saints skipper.
“He picks up balls in dangerous areas and drives at people.”