Tommy Wright will fly out to Lithuania at the weekend to check out St Johnstone’s “unknown” Europa League opponents.
The Perth side were paired with FK Trakai in their first round qualifier.
They will play the home leg first (next Thursday) and, on paper, it would appear to be one of the tougher assignments they could have got as a seeded team, given their opponents are currently third in a respectable league.
And if Saints win, the second round draw has set up another hard tie – either Sweden’s IFK Norrkoping or Prishtina of Kosovo.
Norrkoping will be strong favourites as they are joint top of the Swedish league after 13 games.
Unfortunately, Trakai’s artificial pitch will mean key man Steven MacLean won’t be able to play in the away leg but the good news is that Wright will collate more information on the Lithuanians than was the case two years ago when the draw sent the McDiarmid Park side to Armenia.
Wright said: “They are an unknown quantity at the moment but we will take the chance to watch them, probably on Sunday (a cup game against Garliava), and that will be important.
“Myself and a scout will probably go.
“We are also chasing access to footage so we will gather as much information as possible.
“It will be a difficult game. I would imagine they will be strong and athletic.
“Lithuanian teams have got good results in Europe over the years and the national team drew with Scotland recently.
“The away leg is played on an artificial surface which isn’t ideal but apparently it is of good quality.
“We are at home first so the target is to take a really positive result over to Lithuania.
“Like most managers I would probably prefer to have an away leg first because you have more time to gather information when you are going into the unknown.”
With significant European experience behind them, Saints will know that a gung-ho approach to the home leg would not be advisable.
“We lost the first leg to Trnava three years ago,” Wright recalled. “Which made it really difficult, so we have to make sure we are still in the tie.
“We have to ensure we are ready and we have three games this week to prepare us against the New Saints, Rangers and Connah’s Quay to help.
“That will show us how we’re getting on.
“They’ve played 15 games and once we’ve watched them we’ll have a better picture – but we do know that we’re the seeded team.
“We know this competition can throw up shocks. We have done it ourselves against the likes of Rosenberg and Luzern, going out to lesser teams like Minsk, Trnava and Alashkert.
“We know it is going to be difficult but at least the heat shouldn’t be a problem this time.
“And it is a three-hour flight which is good for us and for the fans.”
Losing MacLean for the return trip is obviously not a situation Wright would have wished for but it will mean his influential centre-forward will have extra motivation to make sure he sends his team-mates on their travels with the tie weighted in their favour.
Wright said: “It’s disappointing that Macca can’t play because of the artificial surface over there.
“But it would have been the same in the Faroes so he was ruled out of two of the five games that were possible.
“He will probably want to play but we have to deal with it. We have handled it before in Scotland. I will tell him to make sure he bangs in a couple of goals in the home leg.”
The dates for the Europa League games are –
Thursday, July 29 – St Johnstone v FK Trakai
Thursday, July 6 – FK Trakai
Thursday, July 13 – IFK Norrkoping or Prishtina v St Johnstone or FK Trakai
Thursday, July 20 – St Johnstone or FK Trakai v IFK Norrkoping or Prishtina
