The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Wright focus still on top six place
Saints boss cautious despite Firhill victory
St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright had one thing on his mind as his team beat Partick Thistle – qualifying for the top six.
Realistically, fifth-placed Saints are already home and dry in that respect.
Their 1-0 success at Firhill last night was earned by striker Steven MacLean’s acrobatic goal on 40 minutes and some excellent goalkeeping from Zander Clark.
The result moved them 10 points ahead of sixth-placed Motherwell and 11 clear of the Jags in seventh spot.
Wright could have been excused looking up the table or even dreaming about bringing Celtic’s unbeaten run to an end at McDiarmid Park on Sunday. Instead, he was playing a cautious game. He said: “The important thing for us is that this increases our gap to 10 points over the sixth team and 11 ahead of the seventh team. “So it was a significant win for us. “A couple of more wins and we won’t be far off almost guaranteeing our place in the top six.”
“We have put ourselves in an incredibly good position but there is still a bit of work to be done,” added Wright.
“It was a typical away performance where you have to defend well and the keeper has to do well for you.
“They (Partick) had a 15-minute spell in the first half where they had good control of the game but we capitalised on a mistake and it was a great finish from Macca.
“We had chances in the second half we should have had more of and Danny Swanson is adamant we should have had a penalty when he was booked for diving.
“In the end, we managed to see the game out comfortably enough.”
Saints now go into their home clash against the Hoops full of confidence.
Wright added: “Sunday will take care of itself but we are going into it on the back of two clean sheets and we did perform well against Celtic at home.
“It’s genuinely not in my thinking that we could be the first team to beat Celtic. I just want three points and after it maybe it would be nice to sit and think we were the first team to beat them.
“We were actually the last team to beat them in the league but it won’t be a motivation other than we want to win the game and it would be nice to do that.
“Nobody has been able to stop them and they will be red-hot favourites again but we are capable of throwing up a surprise result and let’s hope we can do it on Sunday.”
Thistle boss Alan Archibald bemoaned missed opportunities as the Jags passed up several goalscoring chances in the first half.
Thistle failed to penetrate the welldrilled Saints defence in the second half, and Christie Elliot was shown a late red card as frustrations boiled over.
Archibald, whose side remain in seventh place but level on points from Ross County and Kilmarnock, said: “It’s disappointing.
“We created a few chances first half, a few decent chances and we didn’t take them.
“We had a wee spell on top, and we didn’t do that, we lost a terrible goal and couldn’t break them down second-half.
“(Their goal) comes from a free-kick on the half-way line. We should have dealt with it. Callum Booth makes a horrible error and that kind of knocked the wind out of us a little bit.
“We did have one chance secondhalf but never really got going and played into St Johnstone’s hands.”