Graham Carey believes Fran Franczak was St Johnstone’s man-of-the-match in their superb victory over Hibs at the weekend.
And the goalscorer in the 1-0 triumph has predicted a “great career” for the McDiarmid star-in-the making if he continues to marry talent with attitude and dedication.
“It’s not just today,” said Carey, reflecting on the midfielder’s first Premiership start at the age of 16.
“Fran’s been great for the past few months, knocking on the door.
“He didn’t look out of place at all and I thought he was terrific. He was probably our best player to be honest.
“For someone so young, physically and mentally he is really right up there.
“He needs to keep pushing on now.
“He’s been training with us for such a long time and probably should have got his opportunity a bit sooner to be honest.
“When we had League Cup games he was too young to play.
“But he was training with us and I think the staff at the time wanted to play him.
“He’s been terrific.”
‘Always at the front’
Carey has seen plenty of teenagers break into a first team squad over the years.
What is it about Franczak that has propelled him into a starting line-up so soon?
“His work-rate,” said the Irishman.
“He works so hard in training and in fitness stuff he’s always at the front.
“He’s pushing himself and pushing others for someone so young.
“He’s down to earth and wants to learn every day.
“As long as he keeps doing that he will have a great career.
“He’s quiet, he comes in, does his work and listens to the senior pros and the senior pros help him.
“He’s only going to get better.”
The same could be said for Saints as a team, who produced their most complete team performance of the season on Saturday.
“We competed really well and showed a lot of aggression off the ball,” said Carey.
“And when we had it we played some really nice stuff and created some good opportunities.
“It was important we got the three points because of how well we played.
“We limited them to pretty much nothing.
“Even at the end I thought we controlled the game really well. They had possession and were throwing balls into our box but we didn’t panic.”
More to come
Carey, now with two winning goals to his name in the Levein era, added: “Since the manager has come in, we have progressed really well and we have started to play some really good football.
“And we are difficult to beat.
“There is a lot of improvement left in the team.
“They (Levein and assistant manager, Andy Kirk) have put confidence in us to be able to make mistakes.
“That’s not to say the previous staff didn’t do that.
“But maybe it just takes a change to get the best out of certain players.
“The previous staff were great for us but whatever has changed has just worked.”
No more home comforts
Saints have won the vast majority of their points at McDiarmid.
Now they’ve got five away games on the bounce, starting with Ibrox on Wednesday night.
“It’s not ideal but we will just take it game by game,” said Carey.
The winning goal 💙#SJFC pic.twitter.com/68a1ELyBT0
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) December 16, 2023
“I know the manager and Andy will come up with a game plan for every game and hopefully we can get as many points on the board as possible.
“We will approach the Rangers game the same as we do every match.
“Yes, they will have a lot of the ball but we are dangerous on the counter-attack and we showed that against Celtic.
“We are good defensively and we don’t give up a lot of opportunities as a team.
“We will be very confident we can get a result.”
Conversation