St Johnstone manager Steve Lomas fell victim to some Turkish trickery as he spied on the club’s Europa League opponents.
Lomas travelled to the Netherlands at the weekend to watch Eskisehirspor, whom the Perth men play on Thursday night, in action in a friendly against Dutch side AZ Alkmaar, which finished 1-1.
Shenanigans were involved, however, when he was handed a team sheet by officials that had names and numbers listed that bore no resemblance to the personnel on the park.
”It was good to see them and get a feel for how they play,” said Lomas. ”They were a bit sneaky, though, because they gave me a team sheet with all the wrong numbers on it. I was sitting there looking at the team and it didn’t match up.
”I had seen some of their players and they didn’t tally to the numbers I was given! So that was nice of them but that’s one of those things.”
What Lomas was absolutely sure of was the stature of some of the Eskisehirspor players.
”The one thing I did see is that they have some units in their team,” added Lomas. They took off a six-foot-three striker and replaced him with a guy who is six-foot-seven.
”And they have a couple of big defenders at about six-foot-three as well so it is going to be a tough physical battle, that’s for sure.
”They looked a good team, decent on the ball and were wanting to pass it as much as they could.”
Lomas revealed that he has been so satisfied with the workrate of his players since they returned for pre-season training that they will ease off in the build-up to the big match.
”We will go to the stadium the night before and have a wee loosener,” he said. ”It will let the lads get a feel of the surroundings and gauge how hot it’s going to be at that time of night.
”We have been training really intensely in the last three weeks and the lads have just had two days off.
”So this week I will probably wind it down a wee bit because we need to conserve as much energy as possible.”