Steven Naismith has backed Connor Smith to ‘kick right on’ following his January move to St Johnstone.
The 22-year-old left boyhood club Hearts last month to pen an 18-month contract at McDiarmid Park.
After a quick-fire debut against Motherwell and a first start in Saturday’s crucial victory over Ross County, Smith is now preparing to face his old club on Wednesday night.
Jambos boss Naismith reckons the youngster will be relishing the prospect of proving himself against his former Tynecastle employers.
And, despite insisting Smith could have stayed on in Gorgie, Naismith is adamant the time was right for the attacking midfielder to take his career to the next level with a move.
He said: “Connor goes into the game and he’s rubbing his hands because it’s an opportunity for him.
“But I had a brilliant relationship with Connor. Him moving says more about him, personally.
“For us, we could have said, ‘Connor, stay here’. That’s not helping Connor.
“Yes, it might be good for him to say he is a Hearts player, but he needs to go somewhere he has not come through as a youth player.
Chats
“He’s a first-team player and he’s got real quality, and I think he will kick right on now. That was the kind of chats we had.
“As hard as it can be sometimes to leave the club you have come through and you have a good association with, he’ll look back in three, four, five years’ time and go, ‘That was the best thing I did, for sure’.
“We need to know that he is one of their threats because we know how good he is. I know that personally, because I worked with him a lot over the last few years.”
Meanwhile, with his team flying high in third place in the Premiership, Naismith is expecting another ‘different’ game against Saints in their third meeting of the teams this season.
Hearts won the first encounter 2-0 on the opening day of the campaign in Perth back in August.
They then eased to a 1-0 victory in the last clash in November, less than three weeks after Craig Levein’s appointment as boss at McDiarmid Park.
But Naismith reckons the Jambos will be facing a transformed St Johnstone team yet again.
He added: “They’ve done a decent bit of work in January, in terms of recruitment, so it’ll be different.
“And they’ve changed quite a few times in the systems they play and, actually, the way they’ve played in games recently.
“Against us, it might be different. We’ve got an idea of how they’ll play.
“We know they’ll have some threats and who and what we need to do to stop that.
“And then how we’re going to cause them problems.”
