St Johnstone boss Simo Valakari quickly established that signing Roman Eremenko would be a shrewd bit of business for the Perth club.
The McDiarmid Park head coach has confirmed that talks are underway to snap-up the former £13 million man, who is currently a free agent.
And, after getting a snapshot of Eremenko’s quality, professionalism and motivation during his short trial, Valakari admitted that it could be a case of the stars aligning to recruit a player who has won over 70 caps for his country and played for years at Champions League level.
“Roman has trained with us for a couple of days and is now away back home,” he said.
“We have had a conversation and hopefully we’ll hear back next week.
“There were no surprises – he was just as I’ve seen him in his career and how he was when playing in Finland last season.
“What I liked most was he came here and didn’t make a big number of himself. He just enjoyed his training with the boys in our environment.
“He just loves football.
“He just wants to train, train, train and play.
“Everyone knows his history and he still wants to do things in the game.
“He never gave up on his dream to play abroad again. With all respect to Finnish football, he wants to experience a real intense football environment like this again.
“Sometimes things just fall into place.
“With me knowing his family, knowing the people around him, him training with my son and speaking to people who know him, it all works out.”
Swedish transfer
The deal to recruit fellow midfielder, Jonathan Svedberg, is further down the track.
“We have agreed with Jonathan and it is now in the process to bring him here,” said Valakari.
“He is a good player. He started 29 games in the Allsvenskan last season which is a very good league.
“He is hungry for the next step in his career. He wants to get abroad and is eager to take the chance.
“We are happy to get him. He’s a good footballer who can play with the ball and will handle the physical side.
“We are working on other targets and trying to get them over the line.
“That is how it is in this window, but I hope other things will happening soon.”
Saints turned down a bid from Gillingham for Jack Sanders earlier this week.
Nothing has changed on that front.
“We have had an open discussion with Jack and he is fully focused on the Motherwell game,” said Valakari.
“He is here for the fight with us.
“He has to be because this is how football works, you have to play well when there is speculation because that is a test for you.
“There is nothing concrete, though, it is all about the game on Saturday.”
Scottish Cup begins
Meanwhile, Valakari is no stranger to cup glory as a manager.
And his focus is making sure Saints get the better of Motherwell in this weekend’s Scottish Cup opener at McDiarmid.
“I have won five cups in the past as a manager,” he said. “It is always a great feeling.
“In 2016 with SJK we won a cup on penalty kicks. I won two with them there and we had a very good team.
“With KuPS we also won the Finnish Cup twice.
“I won the SuperCup in Latvia when I was there too, which was a great feeling.
“Winning motivates you and it makes all the bad days worthwhile.
“That 16 hours or whatever you get as a manager when you win something is the best, because for that moment you don’t have to think about the future. You just think about the present.
“I remember St Johnstone winning the double because I always watched Scottish football and was thinking what an incredible achievement it was.”
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