RICHARD Foster shared a dressing room with Lee McCulloch during two spells at Ibrox, so he knows what makes former Ranger captain “Jig” tick.
But the St Johnstone defender is aiming to keep the interim Kilmarnock manager waiting for his first win since taking over from Bury-bound Lee Clark.
Foster said: “I played with Lee at Rangers and it’s no surprise that Kilmarnock have put him in charge after Lee Clark left. He is someone you always thought would be a manager one day but even he probably didn’t think it would happen this quickly.
“Sometimes you don’t get to choose when you become a manager. Sometimes it just happens that way and it comes to you. He probably thought Lee Clark would be there for the long haul so he was maybe thinking it would be a couple of years before he went into becoming a manager himself.
“But that’s football. Lee has been given the opportunity and I’m sure if he does well in the games he’s got then Killie will think about him for the job. Lee has that sort of aura about him, he gets his message across well and he’ll get the players playing for him.
“He won’t be fazed by it, that’s for sure, because he’s played at some really big clubs and at the top level. Obviously it’s different as a manager, completely different I’d imagine, but I’m sure he’ll take to it like a duck to water. Apart from Saturday I hope he does well.”
Tommy Wright’s Perth side fine-tuned their preparations yesterday after Thursday training was blown away by Storm Doris. And Foster insisted: “What happened with the weather won’t affect us too much because the manager always works on set pieces and stuff on Fridays anyway.
“The lads all know their jobs so it won’t hinder us too much. The roads were closed getting to Stirling and the boys based in Perth said it was the same going the other way so there wasn’t much could be done about it. But missing one day of training shouldn’t be a problem.”
Foster was delighted with claiming three points against his former club Ross County, with the win closing the gap on fourth placed Hearts to a single point.
But now the challenge is to improve on the home front. The full-back said: “We just want to translate the kind of performances we’ve been having away to the ones at home.
“It has made us scratch our head a bit because we can’t figure it out. There have been games where we’ve dropped points at home when we should have won, which is frustrating.
“But this weekend is a new game, we’ll be up for it, organised and hopefully get the three points. There are a few boys missing but we have a good squad and it might be a chance for other lads to come in and do well.
“The competition is good, everyone knows there’s someone else there waiting to take your place in the team and that spurs you on.”
Killie left Perth with three points earlier in the campaign, so Foster knows McCulloch’s men will pose a threat.
“I watched Kilmarnock on Sunday and they were unlucky,” he said. “They didn’t create loads of chances but they more than matched Aberdeen for most of the game. If they’d got a draw it probably would have been a fair result but they lost two late goals and that was a sickener for them.
“But Lee will have them raised again from it, he will be telling them to take plenty positives from the way they played. Aberdeen are sitting in second place and Killie were firmly in the game until right at the end, so that shows they’re a decent side."
Manager Wright has midfielder Liam Craig suspended and Murray Davidson, Danny Swanson, Graham Cummins and Keith Watson injured. But Paul Paton is available after suspension.
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