If you said to most Saints fans after we beat Rangers that we would only lose three league games between then and the end of February - and make our way into the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup - they'd probably have been quite happy with that. However, if you'd told them we wouldn't win any of those league games they'd probably have been less willing to accept the offer. But this is the situation we currently find ourselves in.
We have managed one win in our last 12 league games - the aforementioned victory over Rangers - and normally this would be a cause for panic. However, the number of draws and clean sheets we have managed recently show that things aren't too bad. We're still comfortably above the drop zone and still within touching distance of the top six. But if we keep on drawing games we can kiss the top half of the table goodbye - and could well be drawn into the relegation fight.
Realistically, the top six has gone. We may only be six points behind Hearts, who occupy the final place in the top half of the table, but I can't see us getting the points we require. We're 11 points above bottom club Dunfermline so it would take an impressive run from them to catch us - but they managed to do just that five years ago. A couple of wins would have us all but safe and keep us in with a shout should the Jambos slip up so we must start getting some victories, starting tomorrow.
Hibs haven't been on a great run of form of late and it's usually in these sorts of situations we're usually more than happy to help out. So it perhaps wasn't such a bad thing for us that they managed to beat Kilmarnock last week. However, they haven't won a home league game for a while so we could hep them achieve that aim. The Hibees are still in the thick of a relegation fight and a win for us would plunge them closer to the drop and move us further from it.
Steven Thompson will return from suspension tomorrow and will go straight back into the side, partnering last week's goal scorer Nigel Hasselbaink up front. It's a fairly easy call because we have no other forwards available as Paul McGowan and Dougie Imrie are both suspended. Gary Teale or Aaron Mooy could be pushed up top but that is likely to come at the expense of Hasselbaink, which would be extremely harsh after last week's display. It wouldn't be a surprise if the absence of McGowan and Imrie sees us adopt a more traditional 4-4-2 with Teale and Graham Carey on the wings and Jim Goodwin and Steven Thomson in the middle. Kenny McLean and Hugh Murray are other options after surprisingly turning up on the bench last week.
There is a rather big problem for us at the back as we don't have many players. Darren McGregor and Jeroen Tesselaar missed last week and have now been joined by Marc McAusland, out for six weeks with a broken cheekbone. Jason Naismith replaced him at half-time last week and coped well so could be handed his first ever senior start. The only other options are pulling Goodwin back and pushing Shuggy into midfield or going for a back three. With Imrie and McGowan missing the latter may well be the preferred choice, with Goodwin joining Lee Mair and one of David Barron or David van Zanten at the back. Hmmm.
Hibs have been pretty poor this season - as proven by them being second bottom - and it was no surprise Colin Calderwood paid the price for this at the end of last year. He hadn't exactly done well after replacing John Hughes last season but the Hibees board turned down approaches for him from other clubs in the summer. Quite why they opted against taking the cash is anyone's guess considering they paid to get rid of him a few months later. In came Pat Fenlon, who has since guided Hibs to the last eight of the Scottish Cup and a couple of league wins. They're still in trouble, but last week's display against Kilmarnock suggests they know how to get out of it.
It wasn't a surprise to see Fenlon make whole scale changes to the squad he'd been left with and the man at Hibs who deals with player registrations must have been rather busy in January due to the amount of folk arriving and leaving Easter Road. Central defender James McPake looks like he could be a good signing - although he did get sent off against Rangers at Ibrox - as does Stoke's Tom Soares. Bringing him in is was a good piece of business and also marked the end of Victor Palsson's time at Easter Road. He's since ended up at New York Red Bulls so I think he might have got the better of the deal.
Most of Fenlon's January signings were on loan as his priority will be to keep the side in the SPL, with a proper rebuilding process taking place during the summer. Roy O'Donovan has come in from Coventry and defenders Matt Docherty and George Francombe arrived from Wolves and Norwich respectively. Amusingly another of their loan signings was Honduran Jorge Claros, who Rangers had been after but couldn't afford. What next - a move for Daniel Cousin?
Signing permanently were Eoin Doyle from the League of Ireland and Gambian Pa Saikou Kujabi, who looks like he could be quite a threat going forward. Fenlon will be hoping he can provide the ammunition for the likes of Doyle, Leigh Griffiths and Garry O'Connor to feed off of. After a sensational start to the season O'Connor's goals have dried up somewhat in recent months (saying that should ensure he scores tomorrow) while Griffiths seems to enjoy getting suspended for his goal celebrations.
Despite getting shot of some of Calderwood's players Fenlon did have some decent men to work with after he took over. Ivan Sproule's pace can still cause problems, Callum Booth and Paul Hanlon are decent young defenders and David Wotherspoon seems to like scoring against us. There's also Ian Murray, who has experience and can play in a number of positions. How long it takes for the Hibs goalkeeping curse to strike Fenlon remains to be seen but at the moment Graham Stack seems to be doing OK with Mark Brown providing competition.