TOMMY Wright expects to hold on to Matty Kennedy until the end of the season.
The St Johnstone winger has signed a pre-contract deal with Aberdeen, but the Perth club have rebuffed two bids to take the winger to Pittodrie this month.
Northern Ireland squad man Kennedy missed out on the Saints’ 3-0 Scottish Cup win over Morton at the weekend, so he hasn’t been cup-tied.
But Wright dismissed speculation that his absence had anything to do with the interest.
“Matty took a kick on his ankle in training last week and didn’t recover in time to play,” explained Wright.
“The conspiracy theorists will think he was left out because it was the cup but they don’t know Matty. He’s genuine and wants to play in every game.
“The first thing he said when he came in this morning was about getting Ayr in the next round of the Scottish Cup. He’s desperate to play in that one because he’s from there and he said that was the tie he’d been hoping for. So that tells you everything about what type of lad he is.”
Wright, while keen to keep the services of forward on Tayside, isn’t ruling out another bid from Aberdeen.
“I have been quite clear that I don’t want him to go in this window and have told the club that,” Wright added. “But I do know everyone has their price.
“At this stage there hasn’t been an agreement between Aberdeen and us.
“Derek has been really good. He’s one of the managers who is on the phone keeping you up to date with stuff in these situations.
“He’s been great about it. We spoke over the weekend but Matty is still very much our player.
“I don’t think this will drag on to the end of the window. It will get to the point where Aberdeen will say this won’t happen or we get to the stage where we think we have to do something.”
Gordon Bannerman
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here