There's certainly no reason why we shouldn't be confident. St Mirren are, not to put to fine a point on it, rubbish. They have only won once in the last eighteen games and while they have strengthened a little in the transfer window a couple of signings from Clyde shouldn't really put fear in our hearts.
But if St Mirren are so bad it makes our recent performances against them even less excusable. It took a penalty save by Meldrum to get us a point at Fir Park last time in a game in which we rarely looked like scoring. Before that they horsed us 2-0 in a game in which we never looked like scoring. Before that was 3-0 and we never looked like scoring in that one either. A clear pattern has emerged!
This time though it could be different. They will not be buoyed by the thought of causing an upset against the odds and in truth they were as bad as us in the Fir Park meeting. Most significantly we didn't have McDonald for that match. We all suspect how much trouble we'd be in without him this season and that dismal effort proved it. He has put his latest petulant rant behind him and is instead trying to win his big move in the best way possible. If he can keep up his form we have every chance of getting a goal.
We haven't been playing that well recently but we have been getting results. This puts Malpas in the interesting position of deciding whether to keep the same team or whether some minor changes could make us even better. Certainly David Clarkson must be in the last chance saloon with his performances up front and Steven McGarry's experience and back tracking could see him preferred to Darren Smith on the right hand side. The competence of Krisztian Vaducz must also be questioned - lacking fitness is one thing but given Malpas hasn't even been willing to use him to shore up the midfield when we were holding onto a lead, it is dubious if he has a real role to play at Fir Park.