Jim Goodwin has promised to have a go when his St. Mirren side take on Celtic on Thursday.
Neil Lennon’s men travel to Paisley for the Boxing Day clash knowing that a win will mean they enter 2020 as the Premiership’s leading team regardless of what happens in the derby three days later.
Not many will anticipate anything other than a routine Hoops win, but Goodwin is intent that his side won’t just be there to make up the numbers.
He told the Evening Express: “We are the home team and I think we have to have an attacking game plan as well.
“We went to Parkhead a couple of months ago and we did really, really well for large spells in terms of stopping Celtic but we didn’t really create a great deal ourselves.
“It’s trying to find that balance between being hard to beat, denying Celtic time and space on the ball, but also being adventurous enough to commit enough bodies forward where we can hopefully try and hurt them.”
Goodwin faces a very tough challenge
It’s an unenviable task that faces former Celt Goodwin and his players. Lennon’s side have won 15 of their past 16 matches in all competitions. Only Cluj have stopped us from winning, and that was in a game that didn’t matter at all from our point of view.
We’ve kept clean sheets in eight of those games and only conceded more than one twice. We have players playing at their top level all over the park, with goals coming from everywhere and a keeper playing at the top of his game in Fraser Forster.
It’s no wonder that Goodwin is finding it hard to come up with the perfect balance to take us on. It’s admirable that he wants to have a go but you also get the impression that this Celtic side will be more than happy that that’s the case.
Our biggest fear in Paisley will be coming up against a compact Buddies side throwing themselves in front of every ball. Thankfully, it seems like they will leave a bit more space for us to attack which can only be a huge positive.
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