Drey Wright will play anywhere for the team.
The 28-year-old has plenty of experience playing at right-wing-back as well as in central midfield for St Johnstone.
So far this season, during the Viaplay Cup group stage games, the Englishman has turned out at right back. It’s been a case of needs must for Steven MacLean, who is the first to admit he doesn’t want to shoehorn players into his starting XI where they’re not most effective.
James Brown stepped up his recovery from injury this week, as the only recognised right back in the squad at McDiarmid Park returned to training on Thursday.
Wright was glad to see his teammate back on the training field, but not because he is desperate to get back to his more natural position.
“Browny’s the natural right back in the squad so that will help in terms of me playing further forward,” Wright explained. “But on the flip side, I don’t mind playing there. I probably get more of the ball, especially the other night in terms of not waiting for the ball to get up to you.
“You’re involved right at the start of things. So, I enjoyed that side of it. But it will be good to get back to working further forward.
“The manager spoke to me before the Alloa game to me to say he needed me to play at right-back which I am more than happy to do to help the team.
“With the injury list we’ve got it’s going to get like that a bit. We don’t have the squad to cover all the outgoings at the moment.
“A few of the young boys have been in and about it and done really well, made a good impression.
“They’ll be looking for more opportunities but I think the senior boys have, not quite let themselves down, but know that there are a few more gears to go to get to where we want to be and perform in the league.”
READ MORE: Steven MacLean 'confident' of new look St Johnstone
St Johnstone are already out of the League Cup. It’s the second successive season that the 2021 cup winners have been eliminated prior to the knockout rounds.
Playing in competitive games in July is something Wright has never taken to, as he pointed to a lack of rest for players between one season finishing, and the next one beginning.
He’s not using that as an excuse though, with Saints undoubtedly suffering a stuttering start to the season.
He said: “Obviously that’s not how we wanted, planned, and expected things to go. That’s down to us, it’s not good enough. We’ve started the campaign slowly and sloppy and really disappointed to be out of the cup this early.
“The league starts next week so we’ve got this game to hopefully put things right and there are spots up for grabs in the team. That, I’d imagine, would be the main motivation for the lads going into this game.”
“I’ve never been a big fan of the early competitive start. It’s such a change coming up from England at first. You get six, or seven weeks off and play friendlies then go into the league.
“This is only the second time I’ve actually been involved. I was injured in my second year here so missed the groups, at Hibs we had Europe.
“It’s not something I’d miss. We had a long season last year, not finishing until the end of May, and only a few weeks off. But it’s no excuse. We didn’t perform well enough. It’s good to see the back of the group stages but we’d definitely liked to have got through and have a knockout game to look forward to.”
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