Tommy Wright is yet to make up his mind whether to recall influential defender Steven Anderson for the visit of Hamilton Accies tomorrow.
The St Johnstone boss will make his decision after training today with the long-term being prioritised over the short-term for a player who has only featured once for the first team this season.
And that injury-interrupted appearance against Alashkert came after an ankle operation in the summer.
“Touch wood everything’s fine,” Wright reported.
“Ando came through the development game. He played extremely well and I’m more than happy with him.
“We’ll assess how he is because he’s been out for a long time, and I’ll make a decision tomorrow whether he starts against Hamilton.
“I know Ando’s a really fit lad but the length of time he’s been out is a concern.
“We’ve got enough cover so we don’t need to rush him back.
“What I don’t want is him breaking down with something else, which is always a possibility. And we’ve got three games in a week coming up.
“We’ll look at it game by game.”
Wright believes his team are three short of the points total he believes their early season form merits, at the very least.
“Nobody has dominated us for long spells in games,” he explained.
“We’ve played some decent football but made individual errors at crucial times.
“That’s why we’ve only got five points when we should have had at least another three.
“At home we’ve been pretty strong, with the win in Europe and two draws and a win in the league.”
Wright added: “People wrote Hamilton off last year and they were being written off again this year.
“You could say they’ve had a wee bit of luck in terms of the sending off in the Hearts game, but they’re a strong team who make it difficult.
“We had a poor record against them last year and we want to improve on that.”
One of the intriguing side-shows will be the form of the two Northern Irish goalkeepers Alan Mannus and Michael McGovern.
The Accies man was Michael O’Neill’s first choice for the recent internationals but Wright, who had a long career in goals for his country, feels Mannus has a realistic shot at starting in Euro 2016.
“They’re both very good goalkeepers,” he said. “I’d back my player and Martin will back his.
“I worked with Michael when he was with the under-21s a few years ago. I always thought he could make a career for himself, which he has done.
“He had to take a step down but he’s come into the top league and done extremely well.
“And now he’s made the step up to international level.
“For Friday night against the Faroes Michael (O’Neill) probably felt he’d done well against Romania and was used to plastic pitches more than Alan or Roy (Carroll).
“And he kept faith in him again on Monday. He made a mistake but that can happen and he’ll have to bounce back.
“Our job is to make it another uncomfortable afternoon for him on Saturday.
“There’s not much between the three keepers, and Roy’s 38. There’s good competition and all three of them will have a good shout to start when we qualify.
“I think we will qualify now. We’re in the driving seat.
“It would be great for St Johnstone to have a player at the Euros.”
Danny Swanson is now officially a Hearts player and Wright pointed out: “The squad is strong and it gives opportunities to some of the younger players.”