St Johnstone v Kilmarnock: Sheridan no longer doing the donkey work on trek back to Perth

Saturday 20 October 2012

Cillian Sheridan never did show his best form at St Johnstone.

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There is still time, though. The striker returns to his former club today as the focal point of the Kilmarnock attack and he will relish the chance to leave his mark on Perth.

A haul of four goals in his four matches since moving to Ayrshire earlier this season – including a hat trick against Hearts last month – should ensure that there are a few extra eyes on him this afternoon. Most of them will belong to those in St Johnstone shirts, with Steve Lomas careful not to understate the danger posed by his former player.

His side will be well-briefed on Sheridan – they will remember what he did on the training pitch last season – and the St Johnstone manager stressed that the Irishman sacrificed goals so that his side would be better served by another former St Johnstone striker, Francisco Sandaza."I always knew a Cilli without Fran would have scored more goals. He suffered because he was the one who ran the channels and stopped the deep-lying midfielders playing," said Lomas, who has Rowan Vine and Peter Pawlett back in his squad. "It almost should have been the other way around but you couldn't always trust Fran to do that and, importantly, you would have been taking him away from scoring goals. Unfortunately for Cilli, Fran was on such a good goalscoring run that he had to do a lot of his donkey work."He may be forced to reprise that role to an extent this afternoon, with Kilmarnock striker Paul Heffernan having made a tentative return to action with his club's under-20 side earlier this week. Heffernan – who finished as the Ayrshire side's top scorer last season – has missed much of the campaign due to a broken collarbone, but he may now be restored to the first team.Similar to Sandaza, the Irishman is not always the most diligent of front men but makes up for it with his penchant for scoring. Yet St Johnstone have not allowed themselves to be cowed in recent weeks, defeating Celtic and Ross County on their way to a four-match winning run in the league."I'm surprised we've set a club SPL record but at the same time I thought we had it in us to go on a run like this. We knew we had a very capable squad here," said Liam Craig, the St Johnstone midfielder. "But after our start to the season we have probably surprised a lot of people."

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St Johnstone v Kilmarnock: Sheridan no longer doing the donkey work on trek back to Perth

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