St. Mirren and Hibernian meet with little form between them
St. Mirren's recent defeats have been heavy, Hibernian's narrow. A look at both sides' last five, plus what PLZ Predictor members expect.
By Harvey Watkins,
On the face of it, this is a meeting of two struggling sides. St. Mirren have won one of their last five league matches and Hibernian none. Look a little closer, though, and the two records describe quite different problems, and that difference is the most useful thing to take into Wednesday night's game at The SMISA Stadium.
St. Mirren: a win at last, after a heavy run
St. Mirren come into this off a 2-1 home win over Dundee FC on Saturday. It ended a run of four straight defeats, and it was only the second time in five matches that they had scored at all. The two goals against Dundee FC and the one in a 3-1 defeat at Aberdeen are the only goals they have managed in that spell.
The bigger concern is at the other end. St. Mirren have conceded 13 in five, with no clean sheets. Most of that damage came in three games: 5-0 at Hearts, 3-1 at Aberdeen and 3-0 at home to Dundee United. The 1-0 defeat at Rangers in early September was much tighter. When this side have lost lately, they have tended to lose heavily.
Hibernian: close, but not close enough
Hibernian's record reads worse at a glance: four defeats and a draw, with three goals scored and seven conceded. Yet every one of those four defeats was by a single goal. They lost 2-1 to Celtic on Saturday, 2-1 to Falkirk the week before, 1-0 at Dundee United and 1-0 to Kilmarnock. The only point came in a 1-1 draw with Aberdeen.
That points to a team whose margins are thin rather than one being overrun. Their defensive record of seven conceded in five is roughly half St. Mirren's. The issue is goals. Hibernian have not scored more than once in any of those matches, and they drew a blank twice.
It is also worth noting that four of those five games were at home. Their one recent away match, at Dundee United, ended in a narrow defeat, so there is very little to go on about how they fare on the road this season.
What the numbers suggest
Put the two together and the outlines of the match are fairly clear. St. Mirren have been easier to score against, and Hibernian have found scoring hard. Something has to give. If Hibernian are ever going to manage more than one goal, a defence that has shipped 13 in five offers a reasonable opportunity. Equally, St. Mirren's win on Saturday came at home, and the fact that Hibernian's defeats have all been narrow means a single goal could decide things either way.
Five matches is a small sample, and neither side's run is long enough to treat as settled. My own view is that this looks closer than the home side's heavy defeats might suggest, and a low-scoring game would not be a surprise. That is a view, though, not a forecast.
The PLZ Predictor
Twenty-eight PLZ Soccer members have entered their predictions for this game in the PLZ Predictor. Of those, 46 per cent have gone for a St. Mirren win, 25 per cent for a draw and 29 per cent for a Hibernian win. The most popular scoreline is 2-1, picked by 11 of the 28 entrants.
Those are our members' picks, not odds, and they are a snapshot of opinion rather than anything more.