Jim Goodwin urges St Mirren to forget weekend woes and focus on Celtic

Jim Goodwin
Published 15th Sep 2020

St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin wants to put the weekend woes behind him to focus on the visit of Celtic on Wednesday night.

The Irishman strongly believed the Premiership match at home against Hibernian on Saturday should have been postponed after he was left without his three goalkeepers due to Covid-19 issues.

Jak Alnwick and Dean Lyness both recorded positive tests, while third-choice goalkeeper Peter Urminsky was also ruled out as a precaution.

Goodwin signed Hearts goalkeeper Zdenek 'Bobby' Zlamal on an emergency loan on the morning of the game, although he was unable to stop the Buddies from suffering a 3-0 defeat.

The Paisley boss, who revealed Urminsky was back in training, will now look forward to the visit of the champions.

He said: "Obviously I have had time to calm down after the weekend. (There was) an element of surprise that the game was going ahead.

"Obviously the result and the overall performance was very poor and it just summed up a really bad week for us to be honest.

"I'm still disappointed about the situation but we can't afford to dwell on it too much.

"Even the game itself, if you look at some of the decisions that went against us, at 2-0 we should have had a stonewall penalty that was missed and then Hibs' third goal was punched into the back of the net by Martin Boyle.

"So I think it was one of those weekends that we just want to forget and move on as quickly as possible, and we've got a good opportunity to do that tomorrow night against Celtic.''

Celtic are seeking their 10th successive Premiership title this season and Goodwin was impressed with their 5-0 win over Ross County at the weekend.

He said: "They've been on a great run for the last number of years and they're obviously going to try and make history and are coming into this game off the back of a really good performance up at Ross County.

"Neil Lennon has definitely strengthened with the signings he's made in the last few weeks.

"I think Shane Duffy coming in is a terrific signing, an Irish international still at a great age with really good experience down in England.

"I think he can be a big, big player for them and added to that, (Albian) Ajeti and (Odsonne) Edouard looked really good at the weekend as well.

"I think once they get him (Ajeti) up to speed, along with Edouard then they've got a really good striking partnership.

"We know what to expect, we know how difficult it's going to be but we have got to go into it with belief that if we stick to the game plan and we do things properly and do the basics well then we give ourselves a chance of getting a good result.''