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Wright doesn’t want a long Europa trip

Tommy Wright.
Tommy Wright.

Tommy Wright will take whatever Monday’s Europa League draw throws at him.

But he admitted a trip to one of Europe’s remote outposts would be at the bottom of his wish-list.

There is no official regionalisation of the draw, but previous experience suggests that there will be a common sense grouping of clubs rather than an all-in draw.

Wright, though, hasn’t got too bogged down in who they will be paired with for rounds one, and hopefully two.

“I’m just delighted we’re in the draw and we’ll take whoever we get,” he pointed out.

“In the past, on paper our first round games have been against bigger sides, and we’ve come through them.

“No disrespect to the two teams we lost to, but Minsk weren’t a Rosenborg and Trnava certainly weren’t a Luzern.

“I’ve seen a list of the local teams we could get in terms of Ireland and Wales, and there were plenty of others I didn’t recognise.

“From a supporters’ point of view we’d like a trip that is easily accessible.

“We took 1,000 to Lucerne and around 600 to Rosenborg. I definitely think the early stages should be regionalised.”

The first, second and third qualifying rounds are played on consecutive weeks, so the behind-the-scenes team at McDiarmid will earn their money.

“To have games possibly six weeks in a row would be logistically difficult,” Wright said.

“Last year we only had 48 hours to prepare our plans for Trnava.

“It’s tough even in terms of scouting the opposition.

“But it’s a great competition, and if it was tweaked a wee bit it could be even better.”

Meanwhile, Michael O’Halloran has targeted making the group stages of the Europa League for the first time in the club’s history.

The former Bolton man, who signed a new two-year contract earlier this week, commented: “I’m delighted to sign a contract extension at the club. It wasn’t a hard decision to make because the management have been good to me and it’s a great set of lads in the dressing room, who are all as hungry as I am to build on the success we’ve had at the club in the last few seasons.

“I feel I’ve developed and grown as a player at St. Johnstone, because I’ve been playing week in, week out here. That’s really important to any player to help you learn and develop.

“This season we want to go as far as we can in Europe, which realistically means reaching the group stages of the Europa League. It would be great to go a little bit further than we did last season to get there. Retaining our place in the top six and doing well in the cup competitions have to be our other targets after that.

“I’d like to thank the Saints fans for all the support they’ve given me since I joined. They’ve been absolutely brilliant towards me and I really can’t speak highly enough of them. We’ve got important European games coming up so it would be great to see them out in the numbers they did last season. It really does make a difference.”