Drey Wright has no problem with Craig Levein finding fault in St Johnstone’s biggest league away win for over three years.
There being plenty of room left for improvement despite the fact the Perth men posted a stunning three-goal victory over Kilmarnock on Sunday adds to the feeling in the McDiarmid Park camp that they are moving in the right direction this season.
And Wright is happy that high standards are being set, with the players singing from the same hymn sheet as their boss.
“I think the manager will probably do that the whole season!” he joked.
“He just wants us to be better.
“We’ll take that on board because we want to be better ourselves.
“We can only improve on this.
“Even though it was 3-0, there were massive areas for us to improve.
“We could have been a lot better.
“We played into Kilmarnock’s hands a bit in the second half.
“Then we managed to flip that on its head with the build-up play for the penalty.
“It’s what you’ve got to do when you’ve got that extra man. You’ve got to utilise it, which we didn’t for long periods of the second half.
“That’s the only negative but it was a hot day out there and we’ve won 3-0.”
Pace up front
Raw speed has transformed the team in attack.
Long gone are the days when Saints didn’t have the capacity to turn an opposition defence and get themselves up the pitch with a ball over the top.
“Andre (Raymond) was brilliant,” said Wright. “Especially going forward.
“And the pace of Benji (Kimpioka) and Adama (Sidibeh) is frightening.
“They’re electric.
“That’s a massive asset and we would be silly not to use it.
“It causes all sorts of problems.
“We’re able to find them with good bits of play but when it’s not so pretty or tidy, we just have to turn it in behind and that gets us up the pitch.
“By putting defenders under pressure you win throw-ins up the park and get flow to the game.
“It’s happened a lot against us in the past.”
Kimpioka, more than anyone else in the Saints squad, possesses an unpredictability factor.
“It can cause some problems to us because you can make a run and you don’t know what he’s going to do with the ball!” said Wright.
“But you see the number of kicks Benji took because of his unpredictability.
“Both Benji and Adama have that natural ability to stretch teams.
“Holding it up is what they’ve got to get better at but I thought they were brilliant.”
Positive vibe
Wright is optimistic that Saints’ weekend victory in Ayrshire will be a springboard for a successful Premiership campaign.
“Kilmarnock isn’t an easy place to get a result at,” he said. “They’ve shown that over the years with the brilliant home record they’ve got.
“So, especially after losing to Aberdeen, this win was massive for us.
“The circumstances in the game helped that but we’d already gone ahead before the red card.
“We were well worth our win.
“We’ve just got a different kind of energy about us now.
“With the league position we were in from the start last season, it was tough.
“You kind of feel like everything is against you.
“But this is a new season, with new players doing really well at the moment.
“Long may that continue.”
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