Saints v Brechin City Preview

Last updated : 26 August 2005 By Stuart Gillespie
If we win most of our home games and pick up some points on the road we'll be there or thereabouts come the season's end. As a result, we simply have to learn how to break teams down. Many teams will come to Love Street looking for a point, just like Stranraer did. If we don't change our game plan a bit for home games, they'll go away with one too.

Going with three up front tomorrow would be a start. Billy Mehmet and Stewart Kean will obviously start, and hopefully Mark Corcoran or Brian McGinty will start in a front three. If we can actually create some clear cut chances, Kean and Mehmet will take them. Let's just hope we can break them down.

On the injury front, Ryan McCay will miss out again as he recovers from surgery, whilst Mark Reilly is also likely to be absent once more. A few players are suffering from knocks, although their identity is being kept a secret at present.

After a year away, Paul Ritchie returns to the first division to haunt Saints once more. Ritchie helped Caley Thistle win the first division in 2003/04 and then moved to second division Brechin. Those of us who thought we'd seen the last of him were wrong. He's back. Four years ago, Ritchie was on trial with us. He scored in a friendly, but manager Tom Hendrie decided not to sign him as he wasn't the sort of striker he was after. Quite what sort of striker Hendrie wanted is a mystery, as Ritchie scored 20+ goals in each of the next few seasons, eight of them being against us, so there's a good chance he could score against us tomorrow. Title winning Saint Scott Walker also returns to Love Street tomorrow for the first time since his departure in 2002.

We need to win tomorrow, however I think Brechin will come to defend for a point. I think we'll break them down, but I don't think they'll score either (even if they have Ritchie playing. I predict a 0-0 bore draw.