Edwards itching to return to Thistle line-up but used weekend suspension to his advantage

Manager Tommy Wright claims St Johnstone have started the season in familiar territory by not getting the credit they deserve.

Saints, who have finished in the Ladbrokes Premiership top six for the last six seasons, began their league campaign with a 2-1 win at Kilmarnock on Saturday, when on-loan winger Michael O’halloran marked his return to the Perth club with a late winner.

Ahead of the Betfred Cup last-16 tie against Partick Thistle at Mcdiarmid Park tonight, Wright was irked by the fall-out from the game “in general” and the perception of his side.

He said: “Being St Johnstone, they seem to be concentrating more on how poor the defending was instead of looking at how great the [O’halloran] goal was.

“Maybe if it was a different colour shirt there would be more made of it.

“It is a great goal. You can look at the defending all day long but to do that goal on that surface, which isn’t a great surface, was incredible.

“And the David Wotherspoon goal was another good goal but again there seemed to be a lot of concentration on how poorly it was defended and not looking at the positives.

“It is the same old again. We don’t get the credit. Apparently we bought fouls and made the most fouls in the game, and that’s how we won the game.

“Listen, people rabbit on and they say things but at the end of the day we deserved to win the game.

“But I think there is a tendency to label us in a certain way. For 60 minutes we were very good with the ball.

“How they got back into the game is we gave away a stupid free-kick and Kris Boyd scored a great free-kick, and for 20 minutes they put long balls in the box which we dealt with and it was good defending.

“But if their players are going to make fouls what is the referee supposed to do? We don’t buy fouls. But it is the same old. We win it because we are streetwise not because we played well.”

Fellow Premiership side Partick Thistle, who made the top six last season, will be familiar foes for the Saints.

Wright said: “They had a great season last season. Obviously this is a big season for them.

“We know how difficult it is to replicate top six. Alan Archibald has done a great job. We played them five or six times last season.

“We know each other well so it is going to be a tough game.”

0 Michael O’halloran’s late strike at Kilmarnock on Saturday gave St Johnstone all three points in their Premiership opener. Partick Thistle midfielder Ryan Edwards is desperate to get back on the pitch and put some new lessons into practice after getting a different perspective on his team. The Australian was suspended for Saturday’s 3-1 defeat by Hibernian in the Ladbrokes Premiership opener and watched the action from the Easter Road stand.

Edwards, pictured, played all but one game last season and even then he was stripped in the dugout for the William Hill Scottish Cup win over Highland League side Formartine United. The 23-year-old is likely to go straight back into Alan Archibald’s team in the second round of the Betfred Cup against St Johnstone tonight andhefeelshepickedupafew ideas from his higher vantage point.

“I’m itching to get back out there,” Edwards said. “It was my first game not being involved in my third season here. It was disappointing, especially with a suspension, you just want to be out on the pitch.

“Last season I played every league game and was on the bench for one cup game, and the previous season I was involved in every game or available to play. Although itwasdisappointingandfrustrating and you want to help the team, it was actually a nice stadium to go to and watch the team play and I had a good position to see from a different perspective how the team plays.

“You can learn from that, rather than being on the pitch all the time. You see different things so it was good learning for me.”

Archibald wants all of his players to learn from Saturday’s defeat after they failed to build on Chris Erskine’s early opener.

“We are not too doom and gloom,” Archibald said. “We analysed it and we know where we went wrong in terms of our reaction after we lost our goal. Even after we scored our goal. We were a wee bit too gung-ho, we gave possession away and the ball was quickly in our net. “We have got to learn from it, the boys are an honest bunch. It’s a different game and we want to make it a cup tie.”

Thistle will be without main goal threat Kris Doolan in Perth but the striker could be back for the visit of Celtic after being forced off with a hamstring problem at Easter Road.

“We were in on Sunday and he was a lot better,” Archibald said. “He used his experience and got off the pitch as quickly as he could.”