Tommy Wright reflected on an excellent weekend for St Johnstone – despite the fact that the Perth team didn’t kick a ball.
Aberdeen’s 3-2 defeat of Hibs in Saturday’s Scottish Cup semi-final means that Saints’ goal post-split of beating Hearts to fourth place in the Premiership will bring with it the reward of European football.
“It’s good that we got clarification,” said Wright.
“We’ve got a clear picture now. We know what we’ve got to do – we’ve got to make sure we get more points than Hearts and Partick and get that fourth place, which would be tremendous.
“It helps for preparation. If we were to get the points pretty early we could get our planning and preparation done.
“It was a good weekend for us.
“There have been years when it’s gone down to the cup final and we’ve got in after it had been played.
“It’s a clear picture this year, which is best for everybody.”
Saints travel to Pittodrie on Saturday, looking to improve on the defeat they suffered to Aberdeen at McDiarmid Park last time out.
They’ll have Graham Cummins back from suspension but fellow striker Steven MacLean will sit this one out as a result of a one game ban.
“Macca is suspended for this weekend,” said Wright.
“Ando (Steven Anderson) played in the 20s last week and young Ally Gilchrist got 45 minutes.
“Kano (Chris Kane) will train in about two weeks. Hopefully we’ll have him available for three of the last games, certainly two of them.
“That’s round about the time we expected him back.
“Keith (Watson) is ready to train in three weeks but we won’t be rushing him back.”
Wright believes two wins and a draw from their last five matches should see Saints, whose current points tally is 49, past the post.
“If we get 56 that should be enough,” he pointed out.
“That would mean Hearts would have to get 11 points out of 15, which is a hard task.
“Certainly, if we got 56 and didn’t qualify we’d be very unlucky.
“Who knows, two wins might be enough.”
