Scottish Cup win for Hearts would be part of memorable treble for St Johnstone boss

St Johnstone boss Steve Lomas is hoping a Hearts win on Saturday in the Scottish Cup final against Hibs will set the seal on a terrific triple triumph.
scottish cup general

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The Northern Irishman was celebrating last week when former club Manchester City clinched their first top tier title in 44 years. Now, he is hoping that another of the teams he played for, West Ham, will triumph in the Championship play-off and that Hearts can do Saints a huge favour by winning at Hampden to send the Perth side into the Europa League qualifiers.

He said: ''Manchester City have already won the Premiership and West Ham are in Saturday's play-off final with Blackpool at Wembley. It would be fantastic if they got back into the Premiership and if Saints made it into Europe.

''I'll be watching the cup final on the telly. Hopefully, Hearts can do us a favour. It would be great for the club and our fans to make Europe. So it is shaping up as a big weekend for us as well as the Edinburgh teams.

''It's a bit awkward planning pre-season right now but we have progressed two different schedules, depending on whether or not we are in Europe. We can firm-up plans at the start of the week.

''Hearts will start favourites for the cup but Hibs will have been buoyed by avoiding relegation. It really could go either way and it's too close to call. But it is a massive game and great for Scottish football."

The Saints boss added: ''A bit of me is envious because Hearts put us out in controversial circumstances. Fair play, they beat Celtic to reach the final so they made the most of their rub of the green against us. But they owe us one!''

Lomas, who is keen to bring in a few signing targets quickly, has already scheduled some pre-season friendlies.

Former McDiarmid Park boss Derek McInnes will bring his Bristol City squad north for a challenge match on Saturday, July 28, a week before the start of the SPL season.

Away games against East Fife (Wednesday, July 11), Raith Rovers (July 14) and Dundee (July 25) have also been pencilled in.

Lomas will take his squad to St Andrews for a week, and three games are proposed in Northern Ireland if Saints don't have Euro qualifiers in mid-July.

He added: ''Del is definitely coming north with Bristol City and it will give the fans a chance to thank him for what he did for the club. The way things panned out, he didn't get to say goodbye. We have good fans here and I'm sure they appreciate the job he did.''

Taken from The Courier