Recent away form has exceeded expectations of even the most optimistic Saintee as of late. With Saints demolishing Ross County on Saturday 3-0, and defeating Falkirk by the same score on the previous road trip, anticipation will be high once more for the return to McDiarmid. Yet, home form has been less lavish. The McDiarmid fans have witnessed painful results against ICT, Brechin, Raith and more recently Ayr. Yet, Billy Stark is sure that with confidence growing, the home form will follow;
"It is by no means impossible for us to conquer the difficulties we are having at home. Teams don’t and won’t make it easy for us here. But the way to overcome that is by building confidence and results like we’ve had at Falkirk and Ross County in recent weeks can only increase our self-belief.’’
"It wasn’t just the result but also the performance which delighted me. The first half was as good as it gets. We could have scored seven or eight and that’s a conservative estimate! I don’t know what it is about these away games, but we just seem able to boss them. Even in our one away defeat, at Clyde, we could have been in a winning position after 15-20 minutes.’’
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"I knew when we brought Mixu here that he would do lots for us but I had not anticipated that 14 games into the season he would have nine goals to his name and I am delighted for him because players of his age are all too readily written off if they have a poor game. Miksu was excellent in his first few games for us and everyone was praising him. Then when he didn’t do so well it was being said he was past it. People should remember that players can turn in below-par performances at any age.’’
Mixu was blasé about his hat trick, and was most pleased by the overall performance:
"My hat-trick was very easy. Ian Maxwell deserves credit for supplying me with great balls across the box and I just had to be there. Most importantly, we played really well as a team. Whenever we didn't have the ball, we were very aggressive.''
Mark Reilly was absent from training yesterday. He is still suffering from his ankle problem. Simon Donnelly was also missing having picked up a calf strain on Saturday.
The Brechin V Saints league clash has been moved to Sunday, November 16th at 3pm due to the clash with Scotland’s qualifying showdown with Holland.