Saints make the short trip to the east end of Glasgow on Sunday for a lunch-time clash with Celtic in the last eight of the William Hill Scottish Cup.
This will be the first meeting between the sides since St Mirren dropped to the Championship at the end of season 2014/15 when Saints lost all three Premiership matches to the Glasgow side.
A lot has changed since then on the managerial front for both sides with Jack Ross now in charge of Saints and Brendan Rodgers at the managerial helm for Celtic.
Celtic are on a storm this season as they are undefeated in domestic competition with their only losses so far this term coming in The Champions’ League. They sit a massive 27 points in front of Aberdeen in the Premiership table meaning they only need to take seven points from their eleven remaining games to land their sixth consecutive Premiership title.
Rodgers bagged his first trophy as Celtic manager in November when they ran out 3-0 winners against Aberdeen in the Betfred Cup final. They now have their eyes fixed on a treble with St Mirren being the next obstacle in their quest having already knocked out Albion Rovers and Inverness Caledonian Thistle to reach the quarter-final stage of the Scottish Cup.
St Mirren have had good cup runs this season having made it to the final of the IRN-BRU Cup and going on to knock Spartans, Dundee and East Fife out of the Scottish cup to make it to Sunday’s tie with Celtic.
After a poor first half to the season Saints have found a bit of form since the turn of the year and go into the game at Glasgow on Sunday on the back of four straight wins.
The sides last met in the Scottish Cup four years ago almost to the day when a goal from St Mirren striker Esmael Goncalves was sandwiched between scores from Joe Ledley and Anthony Stokes. The sides had met two months earlier in the semi-final of the League Cup when Saints ran out 3-2 winners at The National Stadium.
Saints last Scottish Cup success against Celtic was on 7th March 2009 when Billy Mehmet’s second half penalty put St Mirren into the last four of the tournament.
The odds will certainly be against St Mirren on Sunday as many will look at the teams’ current positions with Celtic on top of the Premiership and Saints at the bottom of the Championship. But Jack Ross will take his side to Celtic Park looking to put them in place to try and upset the odds.
