Saints ready to overcome adversity

Foster confident top six hopes will not be blown off course by storm

Richard Foster is confident that neither Storm Doris, a lengthy injury list nor an underwhelming home record will prevent St Johnstone from beating Kilmarnock at McDiarmid Park this afternoon.

The Perth side’s preparations were disrupted when the Thursday morning snow wiped out their training session at Stirling University.

Having five experienced players sidelined through injury and suspension isn’t ideal either.

And Saints, who confirmed yesterday that Brian Easton had signed a new deal through to the summer of 2019, would no doubt prefer that there wasn’t such a marked difference between their away results in the league and the home ones.

But Foster is optimistic that they can overcome a bit of adversity and further strengthen their top six credentials against Killie today.

He said: “What happened with the weather on Thursday won’t affect us too much because the manager always works on set-pieces and stuff on Fridays anyway.

“We maybe would have done a bit of shape work on Thursday but the lads all know their jobs so it won’t hinder us too much.

“The roads were closed getting to Stirling and the boys based in Perth said it was the same going the other way so there wasn’t much could be done about it. But missing one day of training shouldn’t be a problem.”

The former Aberdeen, Rangers and Ross County man added: “We were really happy with the win up at Ross County last week because we played well.

“The strike from Kano to win it was a great one and that added to the drama of it. But over the 90 minutes we would have been really disappointed if we hadn’t won given the way we played.

“Ross County battled well to stay in the game but we managed to win it in the end and that says a lot about our team too.

“We just want to translate the kind of performances we’ve been having away from home to the ones at home.

“It has made us scratch our head a bit because we can’t figure it out.

“There have been games where we’ve dropped points at home when we should have won, which is frustrating. But this weekend is a new game. We’ll be up for it, organised and hopefully get three points.

“There are a few boys missing but we have a good squad and it might be a chance for other lads to come in and do well.

“The competition is good, everyone knows there’s someone else there waiting to take your place in the team and that spurs you on.”

Foster and caretaker Killie boss Lee McCulloch were team-mates at Ibrox and the full-back feels that the Rugby Park directors have gone to the right man after the unexpected departure of Lee Clark.

“He is someone you always thought would be a manager one day but even he probably didn’t think it would happen this quickly,” Foster said.

“Sometimes you don’t get to choose when you become a manager, sometimes it just happens that way and it comes to you.

“He probably thought Lee Clark would be there for the long haul so he was maybe thinking it would be a couple of years before he went into becoming a manager himself.

“But that’s football, he’s been given the opportunity and I’m sure if he does well in the games he’s got then Killie will think about him for the job.

“Lee has that sort of aura about him, he gets his message across well and he’ll get the players playing for him.

“He won’t be fazed by it, that’s for sure, because he’s played at some really big clubs and at the top level.

“Obviously it’s different as a manager, completely different I’d imagine, but I’m sure he’ll take to it like a duck to water.

“Apart from Saturday, I hope he does well.”

Foster was impressed by the Killie performance against Aberdeen last Sunday. He said: “I watched the game and they were unlucky.

“They didn’t create loads of chances but they more than matched Aberdeen for most of the game.

“If they’d got a draw it probably would have been a fair result but they lost two late goals and that was a sickener for them. But Lee will have them raised again, he will be telling them to take plenty positives from the way they played.

“Aberdeen are sitting in second place and Killie were firmly in the game until right at the end, so that shows they’re a decent side.”

Liam Craig is banned, while Graham Cummins, Murray Davidson, Keith Watson and Danny Swanson are injured.

by Eric Nicolson