St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright has refused to blame Rugby Park’s pitch for James Mcfadden’s hamstring injury.
There were some eyebrows raised when St Johnstone named the former Scotland star in their starting line-up for the match against Kilmarnock on Saturday.
The reason was that there had been pre-match doubt over whether Mcfadden’s injury history and his own wariness over synthetic surfaces would rule him out.
Indeed, his reluctance to train and play regularly on Killie’s artificial turf was given as a reason for McFadden declining the offer of a move to Ayrshire.
So when he hobbled off after just four minutes of the second half to be replaced by Lee Croft the hardy bunch of travelling fans must have feared that the pitch had done its worst on McFadden.
However, Wright was keen to exonerate the plastic.
“James has a hamstring injury and we will assess that over the next few days,” said Wright.
“The good thing is that that we got him off early after he felt the injury.
“The injury had nothing to do with the surface.
“I wouldn’t blame it for that.
“Had we been playing on grass I am not saying it definitely would have happened but it could have happened.
“James is not the only player in the league over whom there are concerns about playing on that type of surface but it’s more about training on it every day and playing on it every other week.
“James was at Kilmarnock and turned down a move because of that.
“But for a one-off game on the pitch, James can cope with that.
“So the pitch has nothing to do with his injury.
“It is a hamstring problem and we will deal with that as we would normally do and hope to get him back fit as soon as possible.”
Wright’s argument that the pitch was not the problem for McFadden was backed up by the wee man’s performance before he left the park.
He was on the end of Saints’ best chances of the first half, with the stand-out effort being a sublime back-heel flick that struck the bar after he had met David Wotherspoon’s corner kick in full flight.