St Mirren have played 6 games so far this season and have won 3 of them. However those 3 wins were in the League Cup Group Stages versus Dunfermline, Stenhousemuir and Partick Thistle.
They drew their first league game against Dundee despite Dundee being down to 10 men and they were beaten at home to Hearts in their second league game. Last week they drew with Livingston in the cup and then were put out on penalties.
St Mirren have played 5-3-2 in both their opening league games and average player positions can be seen above.
In goals they have 1 Alnwick.
For both league games and their cup game versus Livingston last week they have played the same back three - 18 Dunne, 4 Shaughnessy and 22 Fraser with Fraser being the most advance of the three in the two league games above. Dunne was signed from Motherwell in the summer.
Left wing back of the three is 3 Tanser who was singed from St Johnstone in the summer.
Away to Dundee they had 12 Henderson as right wing back and he was replaced by 2 Tait in the Hearts game at home and the cup game. Henderson was on loan to Clyde last year.
6 Power is their deep lying midfielder signed from Kilmarnock in the summer with 7 McGrath alongside him. Power was out for the cup game.
16 Erhahon accompanied them in the Dundee game and 11 Kiltie accompanied them in the Hearts game, with both of them playing in the cup game. Kiltie was signed from Kilmarnock in the summer.
9 Brophy and 10 Main played in all three games. Main was signed from Shrewsbury Town in the summer.
With their right wing back always more advanced than their left wing back and Fraser being the most advanced of their back three it is no surprise that most of their attacks have come on the right hand side. 39% (v 37% left) against Dundee and 48% (v 35% left) against Hearts.
In regards to the players mentioned above (that have started in the three games) only 6 are in the 11 most played players from last season.
St Mirren's NP xG v Dundee was 1.64 and against Hearts it was 0.85. Their Post Shot NP xG outperformed their NP xG by 14%. Their NP xGA over the 2 games was 1.6. Giving them a NP xGD of 0.445 per game.
29% of their NP xG (in the two league games) coming from set plays.
Main and McGrath have had 6 key passes in the league games with McGrath on 0.6 for xA. Brophy has had 7 shots at goal (4 on target) and he has an xG of 0.22. Main has an xG of 0.66
Best rated performance was McGrath versus St Mirren with a rating of 8.35 (Fotmob) and 8.3 (WhoScored) against Dundee. Against Hearts Shaughnessy was the highest rated with ratings of 7.6 and 7.92.
They are averaging 213 accurate passes per game which is 12% down on last year's average.
Last season 27% of their goals scored came from build ups from the back which was the highest % of any team.
I expect Ange to try and rest some players and give some others game time (although not a big squad to choose from) so it will be interesting to see how the team lines up. We might see McCarthy from the start.
In our last game against St Mirren at Home we had 68% possession, 498 accurate passes with a passing accuracy of 83% and 37% of the game was played in St Mirren defensive third. NP xG was 1.31 v 0.87 in our favour however the most important stat showed Celtic 1 St Mirren 2.
Match probabilities on Saturday are;
- Celtic 74%
- St Mirren 9%
- A draw 17%
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