St Johnstone boss Steve Lomas has called on supporters to rekindle the spirit shown during this season’s European games to help them book a swift return to Europa League action.
More than 6,000 fans packed into McDiarmid Park last July to see Saints take on Turkish side Eskisehirspor and, although they came up short in the end, it was a memorable occasion.
Now, with two home games against Ross County and Inverness to kick-off Saints’ top six campaign, Lomas has issued a rallying call to fans to boost the club’s chances of Europa League qualification for a second straight season.
“The first two games are going to be massive, especially the first game against Ross County,” the Saints boss said.
“If we can get an atmosphere at that like the one we got at the Eskisehirspor game, it would be terrific.
“It was a superb atmosphere against Eskisehirspor and we would like the fans to come out against Ross County, because at the end of the day we’re looking at an opportunity to get back into Europe.
Lomas added: “If we could win that, it would be a fantastic start obviously with Inverness coming up next. If they had beaten us on Friday, that for me would have been the top three.
“You would have had to have won four out of five to catch them, but drawing 0-0 could be a massive point. So it’s all there to play for.”
Lomas has his sights set on clawing back the five-point deficit between themselves and Inverness, and the post-split fixture list has been relatively kind to the Perth club.
However, Lomas doesn’t believe it will be that straightforward.
“If we can get off to a good start and put a bit of distance between us and Ross County, that’s what we want to try and do,” he noted.
“There are a lot of permutations you can think about.We’ve got three home games so we can’t complain. It’s probably only what we deserve because last year we had the three away games in six days which was ridiculous.”