St Mirren vs Celtic is a fixture that not many in Paisley will be looking forward to on Boxing Day.
Celtic look heavy favourites to head to the Simple Digital Arena and be Paisley’s Christmas Grinch. For the fact is that St Mirren have had a shocking history of results against the Bhoys over the last decade.
Fresh in the mind for many Celts will be that horrid 0-0 draw we suffered there last season under Brendan Rodgers. It sticks out like a toothache considering it came immediately after we beat Rangers at Parkhead. It robbed us of some early season momentum.
As expected, that was as good as things got for Saints against us in their debut season back in the top-flight. They lost their next two against us 4-0 at Parkhead and 2-0 in Paisley respectively. Neil Lennon has won his first two games against them since his return, with two back-to-back 2-0 wins.
That means St Mirren haven’t scored a goal against us in each of our last four meetings against them. The opposite couldn’t be further from the truth. Celtic have, incredibly, scored in 21 of our last 22 vs the Buddies (Fussball Datenbank).
A brutal record for Saints; a beautiful record for Celts
Overall, Celtic boast a proud record over St Mirren over the last 10 years. As 2020 approaches, Saints have only two successes they can look back on in their 23 games against us this decade. 2010 opened up with a 4-0 win for St Mirren in Tony Mowbray’s last game as Celtic manager. Their only other success came in the 2013 League Cup semi-final, when they beat us 3-2 back when Lenny was here in his first spell.
Celtic have managed to win 19 of their 23 games against Saints in the same timeframe. That leaves just two as stalemates.
Of course, any success St Mirren have had against us over the last 10 years has come at their home ground. Both of our draws and league defeat came in Paisley. The cup semi-final, of course, was suffered at Hampden.
However, that shouldn’t leave the Saints fans with much excitement. They’ve failed to score on a staggering 17 occasions against us in all games against vs Celtic this decade. Only two of those occasions have seen them net more than once too.
It really should be a case of lambs to the slaughter on Boxing Day. These stats make for woefully grim reading for St Mirren and their supporters.
Of course, Lennon will be the first to say that all of it means nothing. It’s a fresh 90 minutes and anything can happen. That’s the attitude he needs to take as the manager.
But for us as supporters, we’re entitled to feel that we should be in for a Boxing Day gift of three points and a few goals to boot.
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