St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright says his team can cope without Stevie May if they have to.
May trained with the rest of the squad at the Swissporarena and will be given every chance by his gaffer to line up against FC Luzern in tonight’s Europa League second qualifying round first leg tie.
However, it seems likely his thigh injury will keep him on the bench at best this evening. If that is the case, Wright is confident the team can manage without their star striker.
The McDiarmid manager said: “We will give Stevie as long as possible. We could take a chance with him on the bench or he might not be fit even for that. We will just have to wait and see.
“Obviously, losing his goals would be a blow and ideally he will play for us. But we won’t look upon it as a negative because he missed Rosenborg last year and we won that game.
“So we can play without him.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LpkSUE2YQnQ%3Frel%3D0
Saints touched down in Basle on Wednesday afternoon before an hour and a half’s drive to Lucerne.
They trained at the stadium last night and went over more video footage of Luzern in action.
Wright looked relaxed as he addressed the media, saying: “We always believe in ourselves and that we can beat anyone on our day.
“Last season we benefited from playing in Europe the season before because we’d learned from it.
“Hopefully the trend is we’ll have learned from the two ties last season and can take it on again.
“We have experience in our squad and hopefully last season will help us.
“The feelgood factor is still there after winning the Scottish Cup but that’s not going to win us the tie.
“It’s a new season and we’ve got to move on from it.
“Last season may or may not ever be repeated, hopefully it will be.
“But to even have a chance of doing that we’ve got to show the same strengths as we did last season.”