It Must Be Love Street

 Celtic 6 St Mirren 0 - A Disappointing Day Dissecting a match in which we were comprehensively outplayed and committed numerous foolish errors does sound like a form of masochism, so please forgive the brevity of this article. Rather than plod through the full game as per usual, I've decided to take inspiration from playing chess on Saturday afternoon against Ross, of @BhoysAnalytics fame (he has over 11K Twitter followers and is one of the best accounts for anyone interested in Celtic, scouting, or Scottish football more broadly).  Ross might have had the satisfaction of watching his real life team triumph 6-0, and had his fantasy football team trounce mine, but - to prevent his hattrick of victories - I won our chess encounter, despite blundering with my queen. Neither of us understand chess beyond the basic rules, however my mind couldn't help returning to a Rene Maric (Borussia Dortmund assistant coach) piece, which you can read here . The diagram below shows a conceptual

St Mirren 1 Hearts 2: Early Struggles Leaves Uphill Battle The opposition was the same; the outcome, sadly, was not. Jon Obika's winner against Hearts way back in March 2020 feels as if it was an eternity ago, yet it was the most recent trip most of the lucky 1039 supporters - myself included - had made to the SMiSA stadium for a league game. Those watching at home can rest assured they didn't miss a classic: but why ? What made this match cagey? Why was our performance so insipid? And why did we lose? The formation we started with was very predictable, although changes were made from the lineup on the opening day: dropping Henderson for Tait was a sensible move most fans would have made; Kiltie replacing Erhahon was more of a surprise. A strange quirk of attending the game this weekend was being able to switch from the usual West Stand seat to instead being in the North Stand - which usually houses away supporters. Here's an approximation of the vantage point you would hav

  Dundee 2 St Mirren 2: Encouraging, Entertaining Game But 2 Points Dropped A volatile and scrappy match, which was genuinely thrilling at times, certainly yielded plenty of talking points. The abject refereeing performance has garnered a lot of attention but to focus solely on Craig Napier and colleagues - as important as their decisions were - would be to ignore numerous positives and negatives St Mirren fans could take from the 90 minutes. The number of positives and negatives you took from the game naturally depends upon your own perspective. Additionally, how the season progresses for both clubs might dictate, upon reflection, whether or not this truly was a 'points dropped' draw for us. St Mirren Starting Lineup The concern many Saints supporters, including myself, had about a possible lack of goals was made to look laughable 4 minutes in. The new signings Curtis Main and Eamonn Brophy wasted no time in proving they have found some chemistry; they combined expertly for th

 Tactical Preview: St Mirren 2021/22 The Premier Sports League Cup has somewhat replaced, if not fully eradicated, pre-season friendlies, so it might not be wise to draw many conclusions from them. Yet Jim Goodwin seems practically wedded to the 3-1-4-2 formation that has been used to in all of our competitive matches thus far, meaning a closer look as to how we're going to play makes sense. I'm going to primarily focus on the 2-0 victory against Partick Thistle, since there are no clips on Wyscout for the Dunfermline game, and playing a rotated team against the part-timers of Stenhousemuir won't be quite as insightful. How we've played so far We didn't field any variation on a '3 at the back' formation during Jim's first season with us (2019/20). He started to flirt with the idea of adopting this strategy towards the end of 2020, before the historic 2-1 triumph at Parkhead turned Goodwin into a convert. From here on, this will be called the 3-1-4-2 form

 It's The Saints! 20/21 End Of Season Awards Highest league finish in Scottish football (7th) since 1989; first time in almost 40 years we managed to reach the semi finals of both national cup competitions; the only Scottish team to defeat Rangers over 90 minutes this term; most points (45) in the top flight this century... It has been an impressive campaign, albeit tinged with lingering regret for what might have been - a trophy, chiefly, although our first top 6 finish since the introduction of the split was agonisingly out of reach too. Nevertheless, the curtain call signals the time for prizes to be given out, so let's tell the story of the season through some awards: Golden Boot Winner: Jamie McGrath (17) The Simeon Jackson Award For Best Penalty Taker Winner: Jamie McGrath (10/11) A stellar showing from the Irishman, who didn't quite hit the ground running pre-pandemic in the same manner as compatriot and fellow January recruit Conor McCarthy but has more than made up

 Tale Of The Tait: Game Winning Subs & Switches vs Ross County Jim Goodwin wasn't able to set foot in the dugout on Wednesday but that wasn't necessary for him to influence proceedings up in Dingwall. Watching on in the stands, he would doubtless have been impressed as his St Mirren side transformed a match, threatening to meander into a dull and dreary affair, into a full throttle exhilarant. Tactical tweaks and superb individual displays ensured St Mirren were able to turn the screw, to such an extent that Ross County became ragged and lost their composure as they desperately tried to grab a precious equaliser. Perhaps defeating John Hughes in a battle of strategic nous isn't the steepest of challenges in the SPFL Premiership, as even Yogi questioned in post-match whether his team had been too 'gung-ho'; yet the ability to rectify mistakes and then significantly improve the team is a real feather in the cap for any manager. This article will take a look at how