Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Davidson ‘excited’ by Saints’ Finnish striker
EETU Vertainen has already got St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson “excited” about what he will bring to the Perth side.
And the McDiarmid Park boss is confident that integrating the Finnish striker into his starting line-up will be a far slicker process than with Guy Melamed a year ago.
The former Ilves forward got a run-out in Monday night’s bounce game against Brechin City and thoughts now turn to whether he is ready to be included in the match day squad for Saturday’s clash with Rangers.
“He has had a bit of a close season after isolating and training by himself,” said Davidson.
“He only trained once with us before the game with Brechin.
“But you can see he is a big, strong lad with great feet and an eye for a goal.
“I’m pretty excited about him and hopefully we can get him on the pitch as soon as possible.
“I certainly hope we can get him up to speed quicker than Guy.
“He has been working hard on his own and he played games in Finland before coming here so we will probably accelerate him.
“With all the injuries we have got, it’s actually one area of the team where we are quite strong just now.
“I can probably pick from all my attacking players.”
Davidson brought in two Scots before the transfer window closed and two players who are new to the Scottish game.
“With Cammy (MacPherson) and Ali (Crawford) they know how the club is run,” he said.
“Lars (Dendoncker) and Eetu might take a little longer to realise what we are all about and what Scottish football is all about.
“It can be frenetic, played at a real high tempo, and they will have to adapt to that.
“They have ability – that’s why they are here – and we have to make sure we get that on to the pitch as quickly as we can.”
Saints’ last two fixtures against Rangers were a draw in the Premiership and the famous Scottish Cup quarter-final triumph a few days later.
The memories and lessons learned haven’t faded.
“It was about the intensity we played at in those games,” said Davidson.
“We have shown in Europe we can play with intensity and energy at that level.
“With the good teams, if you come off that they will just pop the ball around you and create chance after chance.
“So it is about how we press and when we press.
“And ball retention when we win it back is important. We can’t just give it back to them.
“You have to be brave in possession, get up the pitch and into wide areas.
“We have to use the European experience and knowledge of playing teams like Galatasaray and LASK.
“We want to move up to that standard in terms of fitness and energy levels.
“That’s how I like to play, with a high intensity game at the right times.”
He added: “Everyone has talked about how good the back three was but for me, it was always about defending from the front.”