Alston believes Saints can bring back pride to Scottish football

FK TRAKAI (2)

V ST JOHNSTONE (1)

Blair Alston insists St Johnstone can restore Scottish football’s shattered reputation tonight by winning in Lithuania against a FK Trakai side who may already think they’ve done enough to progress.

Saints aim to reverse a disappointing 2-1 first leg defeat last week in Perth.

They’ve been handed an extra incentive to fly the flag for Scottish football after Rangers’ elimination from the competition.

Trakai players were so delighted at their shock win at Mcdiarmid Park that they headed straight out to the hostelries of Perth to celebrate. And Alston is convinced the home side may be complacent in Vilnius this evening.

The Saints midfielder said: “I don’t feel the Rangers result adds any extra pressure on to us this week becausewearedetermined to get through to the next round for ourselves.

“Maybe they feel they’re already through. I hope so, because if that is their attitude we might catch them cold the way they did us.

“People have said we underestimated Trakai, but that wasn’t the case at all. I just think it was down to us not starting the game in the way we should have. They were full of energy and we started slowly.

“Once we got back into the game with Joe Shaughnessy’s goal I really felt we would go on from there, but then they scored one out of nothing really.

“So we have a lot to look at from that first 45 minutes. We have to learn the lessons there are to take from it.”

Despite the disappointing scoreline last week, the 25-year-old is convinced there were plenty of positives for Saints. With an extra week of training under their belt, against a team who had the advantage of being halfway through their season, Alston thinks their added sharpness could make all the difference.

He pointed out: “What we have to focus on, as well, is how many chances we created in the second half.

“On another day I think we would have scored two, three, even four. So while we have to look back on what went wrong, we also have to do the things we did to open them up.”