St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright should have virtually a full squad to select from for Thursday’s Europa League tie against Rosenborg.
Barring unexpected injuries in training, the Saints boss confirmed that the Perth club should be at full strength for their trip to Trondheim as they prepare to fly the flag for Scotland in this season’s Europa League along side Hibs.
And speaking of his belief that his men will do themselves proud against the Norwegians, Wright hopes his players will not return home having rued missed opportunities or mistakes, all too often the case for Scottish clubs in Europe in recent years.
“It comes down to maybe a poor decision from a player, or a wee mistake at the back, and Rosenborg certainly have the players to punish you,” he said.
“But at other end when you get the opportunities you have to at least stick one of them away. You will get chances so it’s important that we do take them, and that’s always the way.
“I’d rather come back and say we hadn’t played well and we were lucky, and we had one chance and it flew in. That’s the nature of the game and we’ll always try and look for positives.
“It doesn’t matter who you are playing, if we don’t work hard when we don’t have the ball and defend properly and be disciplined in our defending you won’t have a platform to get something out of the game.”
Wright added: “That’s what we’ve got to do first and foremost, although I don’t think we can afford to sit in for 90 minutes.
“We know we might have to defend for large parts of the game but we also have to have the knowledge that we can exploit them.
“We have been working on areas where we think we can exploit them.”
Defender Steven Anderson will be fit after being rested in Saturday’s 1-0 pre-season win at Morton following a knee problem, while both Gwion Edwards (leg) and Stevie May (hamstring) came through the weekend unscathed.
Only David Robertson is not in contention for a place in the squad as bone bruising has hampered his recovery from a broken leg.
“It’s a wee bit disappointing for him because I was expecting him to come back and be able to do a full pre-season, so it’s quite frustrating because there’s no real timeline with his injury,” Wright went on.
“We’ve got training on Tuesday and one light session on Wednesday and hopefully that will give me a full squad to pick from.”
Meanwhile, Saints are close to agreeing a deal for highly-rated 18-year-old former Clyde midfielder Scott Brown, who is set to return north of the border after a successful spell at Bradford City.
Brown has been on trial at McDiarmid Park and Wright has been impressed with the Scot.