Tommy Wright hoping for cash reward after St Johnstone win over Motherwell

St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright hopes another fourth-place finish can help boost his budget for next season after his team moved five points ahead of Motherwell with victory at Fir Park.

Saints bounced back from Scott McDonald's early header to triumph 2-1 thanks to goals from Steven MacLean and Danny Swanson late in the first half.

The victory gave Wright further hope of an increase in the cash available to him in the summer, after being promised more money by chairman Steve Brown.

“Well, I'm hoping,” Wright said when asked if fourth place would have a direct impact on his budget. “The chairman has said it will get bigger but he's been like Lord Lucan the last few weeks. I had a positive meeting with him and haven't seen him since.

“But the chairman is a realist and I'm a realist as well. He will do everything he can to help me. The league has been tougher this year.”

With £100,000 at stake for each place involving Saints, Motherwell and Ross County, Wright's men looked determined to bounce back from their early setback, when McDonald headed home Zander Clark's sliced clearance.

Wright said: “It's important for that but within the group it's important for pride. We want to win as many games as possible. We want to sit down at the end of the season and look back and say we have managed to get fourth again.”

St Johnstone have now won all three games since the split.

Wright said: “After the split you are playing the top teams, and a team that's in pretty good form in Motherwell, so to come here and win after an early setback…

“We probably could have scored more goals, I thought we were the better team after we got back to 1-1. It was a superb performance. They have been superb all season but particularly after the split.”

Motherwell created several more first-half chances in their last home game of the season but struggled to break Saints down after the break.

Manager Mark McGhee said: “I thought we made a lot of chances in the first half, even at 1-0, to finish it and didn't take them. The second half was a slog, an end-of-season sort of second half.

“But they thoroughly deserve their lap of honour, even though it was a disappointing day, they put in a great effort even to get within touching distance of fourth spot.”

McGhee confirmed he had expressed interest in out-of-contract striker Faissal El Bakhtaoui, who scored 30 goals for Dunfermline this season.

“He is one of several strikers,” McGhee said. “We have got contract talks to do with Scott McDonald. We don't know for certain that Scott will be here, so we have to have provision.

“He is certainly one we would be happy to bring here if we needed him. We couldn't afford to take them both.”