I’m a £13m ex Champions League ace and brother of Premiership cult hero out to win deal with relegation strugglers

St Johnstone have taken former £13 million Champions League ace Roman Eremenko on trial.

Eremenko, younger brother of ex-Kilmarnock favourite Alexei, will start a training stint in Perth on Wednesday. Simo Valakari wants to assess the 37-year-old attacking midfielder with a view to a short-term deal. Eremenko, who starred for Udinese, Dynamo Kiev, Rubin Kazan and CSKA Moscow, has been playing in the Finnish top flight with IF Gnistan.

Valakari reported: “Roman is coming over for a few days to train with us. It will work both ways. We can see him and he can have a look at us. That’s the best way to do it before we sit down and talk about things further. Roman has all the qualities that his big brother had - good vision, good technical ability and is someone who can see passes.

“But what makes him different - and I mean this in a positive way because I worked with his brother before - is he’s more about ‘the team’. Alexei was all about the attack, he just wanted to go forward all the time! Roman works harder for the team, which you have to do when you've played at the level he has.

“He’s been in the Champions League with some very big clubs. Roman is not a flashy player, he does the simple things very, very well. He has a real football brain; it’s like a computer inside his head. It will be very interesting to see him training with us, see how his level is compared to our levels. I’m excited about it but we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves because at the moment it’s just training.”

Eremenko became the most expensive Finnish footballer ever after winning the Ukrainian title with Dynamo Kiev and moving to Rubin Kazan in 2011. His career went off the rails with CSKA five years later when he tested positive for cocaine and