Lee Sharp is confident his Buddies will stand up tall to the challenge of facing in-form Celtic at Parkhead without their supporters in the stands and their manager on the touchline.
St Mirren travel to Celtic Park tomorrow afternoon hoping to repeat the heroics that saw them leave Celtic Park with all three points in January.
They’ll have to do so without the help of any Saints fans in the stadium, with boss Jim Goodwin also absent after he tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday.
While assistant coach Sharp admits neither factor is ideal heading into what was already set to be a tough shift in the east end, he’s still confident his side can pull off another shock result in Glasgow.
Sharp told Renfrewshire Live Sport: “Jim’s doing OK. He wasn’t feeling great on Tuesday night, despite being fine during the day.
“From that he had a PCR test. He’s got a bit of a cough, but other than that he’s more just frustrated than anything else.
“There were no close contacts, luckily enough on Tuesday we did a lot of our preparation and in terms of that there was no close contacts at all.
“He was in his office doing his business in there, so thankfully everybody’s all good.
“It’s disappointing we won’t have any of our fans there. But when you look at the last 18 months we’ve got used to not having any fans there.
“It’ll be different with Celtic obviously having a capacity crowd in there.
“It’s a bit of a nightmare that none of our fans can get in, because it would be great to have some there supporting us and cheering on the boys.
“We’re up against a team that’s bang in form at the moment, playing some really good football. We’re under no illusions of the enormity of the task ahead.
“But we go there as prepared as we always are. The manager’s implemented what he wants early in the week and now we go there with our game plan in mind.
“It’s going to be tough, but if we implement our game plan we can make it as hard as possible for them.
“We can take encouragement from the fact we went there in January and won. You’ve got to be positive when you go there.”
While missing manager Goodwin in the dugout is a blow, Sharp insists it’s not as big a headache as last season when the Buddies lost several players due to the virus at a time ahead of crucial matches.
Sharp is also adamant the Saints manager will be able to get vital messages to his staff if need be, as he did last season when he found himself in the stands after finding himself suspended.
He said: “I would rather the manager was there. We want him to be there all the time. The way we work we bounce things off each other.
“It’s not the ideal situation, but we’ve got to get on with the task in hand.
“Ideally you want the manager there, but at least we don’t have anyone missing in terms of players. We’ve got a full squad which is great.
“That will certainly help, rather than missing two or three players through close contacts and contracting the virus like last season.
“No doubt he’ll be on the phone to someone and he’ll be able to communicate to us while watching the game. It’ll be fine in terms of that.
“He was suspended for a couple of games last season and I’m sure it’ll be similar to that. He’ll be instructing us with what to do at times.
“He has every confidence in us and the coaching staff here though, so if we see something we’ll act on it.”
