It's fair to say everyone of a St. Mirren persuasion is down after Sunday's events at Hampden. I still get flashbacks to key moments and am finding it hard to sleep (although that was the case this time last week so it's probably unconnected!). The players must have been absolutely distraught after what happened, but they can no longer feel sorry for themselves. If there is anything they can take out of Sunday, it's how well they played against an 11 man Rangers side for an hour or so. Repeat that in the league, score a few goals and Sunday will hopefully be forgotten.
Arguably, the only better game to have would have been one against Rangers. There is no pressure on us tomorrow night and even fewer people will be expecting a Saints win after Sunday's goings on. Ironically, just as we did at the weekend, we can help Rangers take a step towards the treble against Celtic. A win for us would move the title another step closer for them, but quite frankly I couldn't care about that. The important thing is we show that we've immediately put the cup final behind us. I'm not expecting anything and if we lose but put in a decent display I won't be too upset. We cannot afford to mope around, we just have to put it out of our minds and get back to staying in the SPL.
While Sunday has taken it's toll emotionally, it also seems to have had a physical effect on the players. David Barron will be missing with a knee problem and could be out for the rest of the season if rumours are to be believed. It's also been suggested Billy Mehmet was subbed because he was injured, while Jack Ross wasn't exactly fully fit before the game. There's also the fact Garry Brady can barely play one game a week, let alone two in four days. With Chris Innes, Allan Johnston, Tom Brighton and Chris Smith all injured - and Graham Carey unable to play - we certainly don't have our troubles to seek.
According to Gus MacPherson we only have 13 players fit, so that should make his team selection pretty easy - especially as one of those will be Mark Howard! With Barron and Innes out it'll almost certainly be back to 4-4-2 with Steven Robb taking over at leftback. Andy Dorman will probably come in from the start and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Stephen O'Donnell there too. Rory Loy is also available now that we've stopped playing Rangers and the injury situation is such that he could be handed his first start.
Celtic are going to finish second this season, some way behind Rangers but comfortably ahead of whoever finishes third. What happens next season is anyone's guess, with speculation increasing that Tony Mowbray will be out in the summer. He's had a torrid time since taking over from the much maligned Gordon Strachan last year, drawing too many games and suffering far too many defeats for a Celtic boss. He also seems unwilling to abandon his principle of attractive attacking football - and his reluctance to do that was behind West Brom's relegation from the Premiership last season.
He's clearly building for the long term, which was proven in January when he shipped out half the squad, including such household names as Gary Caldwell, Scott McDonald and Stephen McManus. The jury is still out on the replacements, although the likes of Jos Hooiveld and Thomas Rogne have obviously been brought in with the future in mind, as has striker Morten Rasmussen. However, the likes of Edson Braafheid - on loan from Bayern Munich - and Diomansy Kamara, borrowed from West Brom are rather short term moves.
So to is the arrival of Robbie Keane on loan from Spurs. He's scored a goal a game since his arrival, but his £65,000 a week wages are apparently being funded by chairman Dermot Desmond. There seems no hope of him staying beyond the end of the season and even if Spurs let him go, Celtic would face stiff competition from other Premiership clubs. He was brought in purely to boost attendances at Parkhead and boost Celtic's flagging title hopes. He's been finding the goals, but sadly other problems mean he's unlikely to fulfil either of those requirements.
We last beat Celtic in the league in 1990 and there would be no better way to put Sunday out of our minds than by beating the other half of the Old Firm.