Friday 14th September 1945hrs St Mirren v Celtic Football – Scotland – Premiership The domestic action also returns to Scotland this weekend and we have the first Friday night match of the campaign taking place in Paisley. It’s been an eventful start to the season for the Saints with a new manager already in place despite there being just four games played. The new man in charge has just about the most difficult start he could have imagined with a visit of the champions but he appears to be a confident individual and will no doubt relish being at home in his first game, despite the challenge it brings. Continue reading for a match preview and selected best… as St Mirren taken on Celtic.
It’s only a matter of months but a lot has happened since St Mirren won the Championship and earned promotion back to the top flight. The club were relegated back in 2015 and have had to endure some tough times since then, even coming close to another relegation. Jack Ross transformed the club in the time he was there so to lose him to Sunderland over the summer was always going to be a big blow. Alan Stubbs was the man tasked with replacing him and it was an appointment that simply never worked from the outset. Stubbs’ attempts to overhaul the playing squad was not met with a lot of positivity from many at the club and although he won the first league game of the season, it was never likely to last long. Three defeats followed against Rangers, Livingston and Hearts. The performances in the last couple of games set the alarm bells ringing and the St Mirren board acted swiftly to call time on his short reign. Having only gone through the recruitment process a couple of months back they at least had a head start on identifying a replacement and that man was Oran Kearney who has interviewed well. The former Coleraine manager has big aspirations and it seems like a refreshing appointment when they could have went down the route of bringing in one of the usual suspects in Scottish football.
Having went through a traumatic transfer window that seen Celtic miss out on several targets and resulted in a pseudo-public spat between manager Brendan Rodgers and Chief Executive Peter Lawwell, losing an important league game against Hearts and being eliminated from the Champions League by AEK Athens, there was a suggestion that all was not well at the club. For the first time since Rodgers arrived there was negativity surrounding Celtic Park and that wasn’t helped by the departure of Moussa Dembele on the final day of the transfer window. The next match following that happened to be at home to rivals Rangers and with the international break on the horizon the last thing they would have wanted would be to drop points in that fixture. As it was, the hoops showed exactly why they are champions with a dominant display to take the three points. It restored some positivity and although it doesn’t excuse what was at times a shambolic transfer window, it does illustrate just how much quality this squad has and will help focus their minds. With the first of their Europa League group stages matches coming up next Thursday, this game at St Mirren will be the perfect opportunity to get back into action following the break so they are firing on all cylinders for the visit of Rosenborg next week.
St Mirren v Celtic Betting Tip
St Mirren and Celtic went into the international break in very different moods but they will both share the same desire to ensure that the first game back ends with a positive result. Kearney’s appointment as the new boss at the Buddies should give the whole club a boost and although it’s a massive task in his first game, he has had the best part of a week to work with the squad so it will be interesting to see what sort of impact he’s had. Certainly, in the two games previous St Mirren allowed far too many shots on their goal and were too passive in defence – that’s the first thing he has to improve. Celtic may have lost one of their star strikers but they will be delighted that their record signing Odsonne Edouard returned to fitness in time for the last game and with another fortnight of training under his belt he’ll be raring to get back amongst the goals.
Hamilton away next week will be a much more realistic gauge of where St Mirren are headed under their new boss and anything they can take from Friday’s game is most definitely a bonus. A more resolute display and being harder to beat would be seen as a success in my opinion but you sense that the visitor’s class will just be too much in the end. Go for the game to be drawn at half time with Celtic to do enough in the second half to get the win.
Selection: Draw HT, Celtic FT 3/1 @ Marathon Bet
