Saints rally behind Wright with victory... and points to prove
The St Johnstone boardroom is raging with Tommy Wright.
But those in the Perth dressing room proved they’re fully behind their gaffer with a spirited win over Kilmarnock.
Wright put the cat amongst the pigeons on Friday by launching an attack on Saints’ hierarchy over their approach to transfers.
The sale of Matty Kennedy to Aberdeen sparked his blast.
But Wright’s players showed that, despite the loss of their star man, there is still life in their campaign as goals from
Ali McCann and David Wotherspoon cancelled out a Chris Burke penalty.
The result saw Killie’s winless run stretch to nine games.
Yet it was all about Saints on an afternoon of rare drama at McDiarmid Park.
St Johnstone fans aren’t really the protesting type, at least not in the in-your-face sense.
They don’t form mobs and they don’t chant for people to lose their jobs. They simply don’t turn up.
There are plenty in Perth who have drifted away from their football club in recent years, frustrated by an increasingly passive, slapdash approach to transfer windows.
But nobody expected Tommy Wright to add his name to the list of those scunnered by Saints’ financial decision-makers.
Friday’s sale of Kennedy proved the final straw for the Perth boss, who accused the club’s head of football operations, Kirsten Robertson, and chairman Steve Brown of freezing him out of their decision-making process.
Wright’s comments lent a level of intrigue to Killie’s visit. Yet many still stayed away – done in, no doubt, by the sheer disappointment of it all.
Those that did turn up watched their team race into an early lead over their visitors.
Stevie May set them on the path, finding the overlapping Scott Tanser wide on the left.
On his first start since November, the Englishman beat Stephen O’Donnell and whipped in a deadly cross, which Ali McCann was in the right place to prod home from inside the six-yard box.
For all their off-field discomfort, Saints looked pretty slick, and could have stretched their lead had May found strike partner Chris Kane rather than running into a Killie defender on the breakaway.
The Perth side had looked comfortable but, from nothing, they found themselves pegged back – and unjustly so.
There seemed to be little danger when Chris Burke broke towards the Saints box from the right flank, which made Callum Booth’s sliding challenge a crazy one.
He caught the Killie man a full yard outside the box but, after Burke’s fall took him over the line, referee Alan Muir blundered by pointing to the spot, allowing Burke himself to stroke home from 12 yards.
In the aftermath, Killie pushed for a second.
Burke was denied when Zander Clark tipped his spectacular 20-yard free-kick over the bar.
Then it was Saints’ turn to receive the rub of the green when the referee missed Jason Holt’s handball from a Killie corner.
But, after the break, what had been an open contest turned stuffy.
Saints had most of the ball – and the chances.
The best of them came when Callum Hendry saw a phenomenal, 30-yard free-kick spectacularly saved by
Jan Koprivec.
But, just when it seemed the home side’s possession would come to nothing, David Wotherspoon latched onto a poor defensive header to side-foot past Koprivec, who got a touch on the ball, from 15 yards.