Wright prepared to do his homework ahead of Saints qualifier

Tommy Wright will fly out to Lithuania at the weekend to check out St Johnstone’s “unknown” Europa League opponents.

The Perth men were paired with FK Trakai in their first-round qualifier.

They will play the home leg a week on Thursday and, on paper, it would appear to be one of the tougher assignments they could have got as a seeded team, given their opponents are third in a respectable league.

If Saints win, the secondround draw has set up another hard tie – either Sweden’s IFK Norrkoping or Prishtina of Kosovo.

Norrkoping will be strong favourites as they are joint top of the Swedish league after 13 games.

Unfortunately, Trakai’s artificial pitch will mean key man Steven MacLean won’t be able to play in the away leg but the good news is that Wright will collate more information on the Lithuanians than was the case two years ago when the draw sent Saints to Armenia.

Wright, who has taken former Rochdale and Port Vale defender Scott Tanser on trial, said: “They are an unknown quantity but we will take the chance to watch them, probably on Sunday and that will be important.”

Rangers will play Progres Niederkorn, of Luxembourg, in the first qualifying round. Pedro Caixinha’s Light Blues will begin their competitive campaign with the first leg on June 29 before the second leg away on July 6.

Olivier Ciancanelli’s players have one familiar face to Scottish football, with former Hearts and Kilmarnock defender Ismael Bouzid in their ranks, who had a trial at Rangers in June 2014. If successful, Rangers will face AEL Limassol or St Joseph’s in the second qualifying round.