St Mirren are a club ambitiously looking higher in the table and wanting to establish themselves among that company. The influx of players last summer heralded a new era in St Mirren football, but how has this summer shaped their outlook for this coming season? Craig Fowler writes.
Last Season
The demand for progress from the St. Mirren stands was finally realised as the club never once stared down the prospect of relegation and cruised into an eighth place finish. Then those same fans rose up again and insistently derided the team’s growth; in their opinion it wasn’t enough. This was the first year since their return to the SPL in 2006 that St Mirren had not finished in the bottom three of the table, but fans felt dissatisfied with being perched just above the bottom third as their only achievement from a season that promised, and could have delivered, more. Home exits in both cup competitions to non-Old Firm teams (Ayr and Hearts) and sixteen league draws certainly suggests underachievement, but Danny Lennon will rightly invoke the past and reflect that the campaign was at least a step in the right direction.
Summer Activity
The signing of Jereon Tesselaar last summer was a modest unveiling in comparison with the media hype surrounding the return to Scotland of former internationalists Steven Thompson and Gary Teale, but unlike the latter (of those two) the Dutchman would prove to be a shrewd acquisition. However, he’s now one of two players who decided to reject a new deal in order to sign with another SPL club (Kilmarnock in this case), a double blow for St Mirren by losing a valued player to a team who they’re looking to overtake. Exactly the same scenario occurred with Nigel Hasselbaink who moved into the top six to sign for St Johnstone. The striker was easily the club’s least consistent player, but the spark he provided cannot be replicated by anyone currently in the squad and will be difficult to replace via the free agency/transfer market. The dependable Steven Thomson (the midfielder) and the long running servant Hugh Murray were both shown the door, but with their advancing age and decreasing appearances their loss will not be felt.
Two years since bringing four of his former Cowdenbeath players with him to Paisley, Lennon has exercised this talent pool once again. Jon Robertson is expected to start in midfield this season after making the two league jump up from Division Two. If he’s anything like Darren McGregor then he’ll do very well, but if he’s more like Paul McQuade he’ll swiftly hear the discontent from those who’ll feel he’s one of the manager’s favourites. Sam Parkin arrives back in the SPL for reasons only Lennon can explain. Quite what Parkin managed to do at bottom of the First Division Queen of the South to warrant a move back to the top flight after his disastrous stint with St Johnstone is anyone’s guess. He’s joined by Lewis Guy, a striker with decent pedigree but whose career goals tally perpetrates a misappropriate use of the word “striker”.
Key Player
Paul McGowan – McGowan is an exciting player to watch in any type of match; an attacking central midfielder who drives at opponents in order to create instead of picking them apart. His form last year warranted a Scotland call-up in the minds of a few, and this will become a reality if similar improvement is shown in his game this campaign. Without Hasselbaink greater emphasis will be placed on him this season to create for himself and his teammates, and at times he may find himself carrying them on his back. It will be interesting to see if he’s able to take on that challenge.
Manager
Relegation, and finishing lower than an abject Hamilton team, was how Lennon almost frittered away his honeymoon period in his first year in charge. With that memory festering at the back of the fans’ minds it may explain why he was able to take them three places higher in the table and win little support doing so. The St Mirren supporters are not against him, per se, but he is still being closely monitored by a stern and distrustful eye as most fans are unable to make up their minds about his abilities to lead their team forward. Enough time has passed that it won’t take more than a decisive start, one way or the other, for those still undecided to reach a conclusion. Lennon better hope his team are quick out of the traps.
Projection
Hasselbaink’s erratic and inconsistent style was somehow greatly influential to how St Mirren functioned in attack. I suppose when your own manager has no chance of guessing what you’ll do next then how can the opposition? Beyond that he could at least be trusted to provide energy and work rate in his area of the pitch, with teammates around him feeding off that vigour. Steven Thompson is still going to be an excellent target man, McGowan an exciting play-maker but their attack has still lost something that’s not been replaced, and you can only presume they’ll be weakened because of that. What may balance that out is the return, late last season, of Darren McGregor. Going into the previous campaign he looked their best player. Getting him back from that knee-injury is like signing a new star. The team will be better going forward just by having him at the back.
Verdict
A slight step back for the club and Danny Lennon finds the criticism growing in volume, but he at least sticks around to have around go at it next summer.
Craig: 9th Simon: 7th Joel: 8th
20/20 Hindsight
What we got right and what we got wrong:.
Right: Lewis Guy and Sam Parkin were not capable replacements for the maverick Nigel Hasselbaink whose spark St Mirren did miss at points of the season. Overall the league position did not improve on the last one.
Wrong: Gary Teale eventually proved to be a strong signing after a particularly impressive end to the season. Elsewhere our projections were hampered by injury with McGregor missing almost the entire season and McGowan missing large chunks. Despite a poor league season Danny Lennon is under very little pressure thanks to his guiding the team to League Cup glory, which nobody saw coming.