St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright praised his players for further cementing their position in fourth by beating Hearts last night – and did not rule out trying to catch big-budget Rangers in third.
Saints put what had been a bad few days behind them with a thoroughly deserved win over the Jambos at McDiarmid Park with Joe Shaughnessy proving to be the goal hero with a solitary second-half counter.
The Perth men are now five points ahead of Ian Cathro’s side and have closed the gap on Rangers to six with Wright cautiously conceding that the Glasgow side could be caught.
While it was a great night for St Johnstone, it was a disastrous one for the Jambos with sub Sam Nicholson shown a straight red card towards the end for allegedly spitting in the direction of assistant referee Stephen Mitchell.
However, Wright was only concerned with his own players and what they had achieved.
He said: “We deserved that win and anyone who would suggest otherwise is living in cloud cuckoo land.
“Hearts kept the ball pretty well in the first 20 minutes but I don’t think Alan Mannus had one save to make apart from one shot all night.
“Once the game opened up, we were the dominant team throughout.
“Football is all about doing the right thing at the right times and making sure when your opportunities come along, you take them.
“We have taken a good opportunity tonight and I am pleased as it has been a tough week for everybody at the club.
“The players have shown their character again and it is a great three points for us.
“We had six missing tonight but listen it is 11 v 11 and we don’t bemoan injuries.
“I had every confidence in the team we had out there.
“But it was a great result and performance. We recover now and get ready to go again.”
Wright added: “We haven’t done anything tonight except get three points and opened up a gap.
“Hearts will still feel they can catch us and that’s rightly so because it is only five points.
“But there is nothing to say that if we get the right run of results we can’t close the gap on Rangers and put a bit of pressure on them.
“A six-point gap is maybe asking too much but if we could really put pressure on Rangers it would be a tremendous achievement.”
Wright also revealed that a resolution to the situation regarding Danny Swanson and Richard Foster who were sent off for fighting with each other against Hamilton on Saturday is imminent.
He added: “I would say the club will make a statement in the next 24 hours.
“Everything has to be done properly but we will move on from it.”
Meanwhile, Hearts boss Ian Cathro insisted that while Nicholson may have spat there was nothing malicious in his actions.
He said: “The accusation that has been made is that he has spat in the direction of the assistant referee.
“My understanding from Sam and players around the situation is that there is no way to read that as an aggressive thing.
“We need to look at it and deal with it properly.
“Players do that (spit) in football and we have all seen it before.
“My understanding is that’s the case from Sam’s telling of the situation.”
