St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright has warned excited Perth fans they should not expect Graham Cummins to match the feats of former hitman Stevie May.
Irishman Cummins has made an incredible start to his time at McDiarmid Park, netting off the bench in his first two games before marking his opening start with another strike in Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw against Ross County.
Wright has been delighted with the impact made by the 27-year-old former Preston and Exeter striker.
But the Saints manager is keen to take the pressure off his summer recruit by playing down comparisons with May, who clinched a £800,000 switch to Sheffield Wednesday last summer after hitting 32 goals in 80 appearances for his home-town club.
Wright told Press Association Sport: “Graham Cummins is his own man. If he gets as many goals as Stevie May that would be brilliant. But he is a totally different player to Stevie.
“He will score different types of goals from Stevie.
“But what I will say is that what we have seen so far in games and in training, he is a good finisher – a natural finisher who comes alive in the box.
“I’ve been pleased with him but I’ve been pleased with John Sutton too, while Steven MacLean and Chris Kane are working hard to get in the team too.”
Saints have fought back to claim draws in their last two matches against Inverness and Ross County, while their Ladbrokes Premiership opener with Hearts saw the Perth team recover from two goals down to level at 3-3, only for Sam Nicholson to steal the victory at the death.
Wright is encouraged by his team’s battling spirit – but would prefer them not to fall behind in the first place when they travel to Dundee on Saturday.
“The character to fight back has been good but the players know themselves that you can’t keep falling behind and then come back,” the Northern Irishman warned. “That can only happen so often.
“We need to start keeping clean sheets because we’re scoring goals, even though people didn’t think we would.
“That is similar to last season. It was eight games into the season before we kept our first clean sheet. Maybe it’s just an early-season thing.
“But a lot of the mistakes are individual errors rather than teams tearing us apart and I think that is more likely to happen at the start of the season. If we can see an improvement in our defending as a team then I think we will soon pick up wins.”