St Mirren return to action on Saturday against Livingston at the Tony Macaroni Arena, after a well earned break last weekend.
Saints had a free weekend last week due to the Scottish Cup, so the team will be keen to get back to league action, as the league leaders look to cement their place at the top of the Scottish Championship.
Tomorrow's opponents currently occupy second spot in the league on goal difference, but are 14 points adrift with a game in hand. However, a win for The Saints tomorrow would increase that lead to 17 points on both Livingston and Dundee Utd, who are not in action this week because of Dumbarton's Irn-Bru Cup semi-final tie.
St Mirren have played Livingston twice so far this season and both times have came out on top with a 3-1 win. The first game took place at tomorrow's venue in a hard fought encounter. The scoring was opened about the 10 minute mark when Stephen McGinn's cross deflected off Craig Halkett's leg and spun over Neil Alexander to give Saints the lead. The defender made amends though by scoring a header from a corner five minutes later to even things up. St Mirren were then reduced to 10 men after Gary Irvine's tackle was deemed too dangerous. Top goalscorer Gavin Reilly pulled The Buddies back in front in the second half though, as he pounced on a goalkeeping error from Alexander to make the score 2-1 six minutes after the restart. Reilly then rounded off the afternoon nine minutes later when he got on the end of a Stelios header to thump the ball high into the net.
The most recent game took place back in November, where Saints when down 1-0 after the first 45 minutes thanks to Dale Carrick capitalising on Craig Samson's block in the six yard box. Jack Ross' side came out fighting in the second half though, as lewis Morgan's strike six minutes after the break brought the game back to level terms. Adam Eckersley then had an effort on the 66th minutes that ricochet off of a Livingston defender before bouncing off the back of Neill Alexander and trickling over the goal line to give St Mirren the lead. The game was then put to bed on the 78th minute when Jack Baird was brought down in the box from a corner. Ian McShane stepped up and cooly sent Alexander the wrong way to give Saints a much needed win at that time.
There could be a debut for new Saints star Myles Hippolyte against his old team tomorrow, as he is now fully fit after having some niggling injury problems the last couple of months. Hippolyte spent 18 months in West Lothian before signing for Falkirk in January 2016. Josh Todd also made his comeback this week playing in a development game which saw the young buds win 3-1 against St Johnstone.
After much speculation this week, Jack Ross will be on the St Mirren bench come Saturday, having turned down a move to Barnsley FC during the week. The manager's sole focus will now be on steering the club towards promotion.
