Match Preview: St. Mirren (A)
"We have to just keep moving."
“So for now it is not about the table, but about the games. We haven’t played every team home and away yet, so we have to just keep moving.”
Jimmy Thelin (quoted in Press and Journal)
Aberdeen visit Paisley hoping to end a dismal run at the The SMISA Stadium. The Dons have not won in the league there since December 2018. Eight games have been played since and the Buddies have won five of them. Possibly the worst was the Peak Warnock fixture of March 2nd this year, when the Dons conceded in the 96th and 97th minutes to lose 2-1. Yes, though that feels like a different universe, it was the same calendar year as this.
Jimmy does not deliver the solid gold clickbait that the aforementioned Yorkshireman provided to slavering media outlets, but he does make a good point in the quote above. Aberdeen have not played every team home and away yet. In fact, they’ve been at Pittodrie for 63.6% of their league matches this season, seven out of eleven.
At the risk of sounding like Tom English, even if you ignore the level of opposition played, in its simplest form, playing at home is an advantage. This temporary anamoly will be corrected over the next week or so as the Dons play St. Mirren, Hibs and Hearts all on their own turf. In news that may well not go down in Edinburgh, and ignoring another dismal away record (Tynecastle), this first game, may be the trickiest.
How have St. Mirren done since the last match?
Way back in August, the Dons won 3-1 in one of their more comfortable wins this season. St. Mirren had, as we were constantly reminded, just come back off their third (out of four) European matches.
In their subsequent 10 matches, they won only one (2-1 vs Hearts) and lost seven They have turned things around, in their last three however, beating St. Johnstone and Hibs either side of a draw with Ross County. This was preceded by a strong performance at Ibrox in a 2-1 defeat. They sit 6th in the league.
Stats wise they’re slightly overperforming xG (17 goals to an xG of 15.1) and underperforming on xGA (22 goals conceded to an xGA of 19.2). Additional data points which stand out are:
Average Possession: 42.7% (9th)
Big Chances Created: 29 (3rd)
Accurate Long Balls: 24.3 per game (10th)
Possession won final 3rd per match: 1.8 (12th)
Fouls per match: 12.5 (1st)
St. Mirren Tactics
The Saints have went for a 3-4-3 in their last six matches. This is a departure from the 3-5-2 they employed at Pittodrie. I would expect this to be maintained, and a similar starting XI to take the field.
In Possession
If you remember in that match, Aberdeen dropped off a lot and encouraged St. Mirren to pass out of the back, which they did not enjoy and the Dons were able to co-ordinate their press to win the ball back. I’m not sure this will be the case this time around. There is unlikely to be too many passing patterns out of the back. Goalkeeper Balcombe played 20 passes in the Hibs game, 18 were hit beyond his own third. The Buddies will look to win the ball in the air, or pick of the second ball and get it wide.
They are very dangerous from crosses into the box and with the numbers they have, they can create 2v1s with the wide forward and wing back, so the Aberdeen wide players will need to be ready to track back. In those instances, they then have the option to lay it off to the wide centre-back who can deliver from deep.
As the numbers below show they score a proportion of their goals from crosses.
Four out of those six crossing goals were from headers, as were the two from corners (one technically an own goal but I’m giving St. Mirren credit for it), so we should expect a busy afternoon for Molloy, Rubezic and Mitov. Tanser and O’Hara both have very good delivery from open play or set-pieces. Cillian Phillips has a longish throw, they’ve been using fairly often too.
There were four goals scored from longer, direct balls (including the one scored at Pittodrie) and Toyosi Olusanya, will aim to cause similar problems with his strength and pace as the #9.
Out of Possession
One of the metrics earlier in the post that was surprising was St. Mirren’s possession won in the final 3rd. I took a look at a slightly different version, but in the same vein - High Recoveries - where I could look at things from a game by game perspective. In that gauge, they are 11th, with an average of 3.23 but the last few games have seen that trend upward.
Against Hibs they made six high recoveries and five against St. Johnstone, four vs Ross County and four vs. Rangers. This correlates with Stephen Robinson’s thoughts as he noted in his press conference on Friday that his team ‘had got back to our normal, aggressive press.’
The reason I focus on this is I expect St. Mirren to try and press Aberdeen and the Dons success may be dependent on how well they play through (or over) this.
St. Mirren Press
Hibs struggled against St. Mirren last week. I expect the Buddies will look to explore a similar strategy against Aberdeen as they did against the Hibees and indeed at times against Rangers. Namely, they will force/guide the pass to the full-back and then press aggressively from there. Hopefully the images below provide a good enough picture of how this was done at Easter Road (testing the Gallery feature on Substack).
And here’s the customary GIF of what this might look like.
In this example above Devlin would be pressed and forced back to Rubezic who may have to go long. With the numbers they have in those spaces, turnovers can create very dangerous and immediate attacking chances.
Now a press like this does present Aberdeen opportunities. Firstly, Hibs only played with one holding midfielder. A double pivot of Shinnie and Nilsen may be harder for the front three to deny passes too. If either of those two can get the ball in behind the lines it presents options to play forward into Clarkson or one of the wide players. Alternatively, it will allow the centre-back more time on the ball as the wide frontman may have to drop in to pick up one of the midfielders.
Secondly, if the Dons can work the ball through the lines or even have a well coordinated plan for longer balls, there are options for them to have numbers up situations. Let’s just say Devlin is squeezed really hard by Tanser (LWB) with support from O’Hara, then positioning from Clarkson and Keskinen could create a problem for Taylor the LCB. Or alternatively, Duk if he maintains the width could be an option for a big switch.
Transition and Low Block Potential
Beyond the build-up phase I think we can expect the potential for a lot of transitions in the middle of the field. St. Mirren will certainly come with some bite in their tackles and look to deny as much space as possible, which will create opportunities for them to create counters.
If the Dons go behind, or if they are breaking the press easily, then the Buddies will be comfortable sitting in a low-block and ceding possession. Against Simo’s tiki-taka St. Johnstone, they had 27% possession in the 2nd half. At home. Versus Hibs it was 30% overall.
Aberdeen Selection Questions
Some of these can be copied and pasted from every other week. I think we will see some rotation this week between the two games.
Nilsen or Palaversa? I don’t know if there’s a wrong answer here. Personally I think it might be a game for the Norwegian, at least to start with. He rarely turns the ball over and I think we missed his positioning against Dundee in the first half, when the game was quite back and forth.
Clarkson or McGrath, or both? I thought Clarkie was better against Dundee, particularly in the second half. I’m not sure St. Mirren away is a perfect game for him, but this is the SPFL and he’s going to have to deal with these matches if he wants to be a consistent success. I’m not sure how ready McGrath is, there was no mention in the press conference he wasn’t (apologies if I missed it). I think Clarkson to start.
Keskinen or Morris? It will probably be Keskinen. The only reason I bring this up is that he played almost two full games in the International break, so he may well start on the bench in one of the two fixtures. The curveball could be McGrath back on the left.
Sokler or Nisbet? I think this is a tricker one. Nisbet did well against Dundee and now has three goals (one every 114 minutes) versus Sokler’s one in 584 minutes. The former-Hibee also is better in the air, winning 2.4 aerial duels per game (58.6%) versus 1.1 (37.9%), which may be more valuable today.
If I was putting money on it, I’d say Nilsen is the only change from the Dundee game, but we shall see. As we should all know by now, this is a 16-man game with Thelin and how things start will certainly not be how they end.
Summary
This is going to be a tough game. I would not be surprised if the half-time chatter again, is that we are not having our best day. St. Mirren will come out of the traps, be in Aberdeen’s faces and it will take some adjustments. Molloy and Rubezic will need to have their wits about them and the latter must avoid any lapses in concentration.
It will be a test of Aberdeen’s ability to play through a high press, either on the ground or in the air. The biggest difference between Thelin’s Aberdeen and his Elfsborg, seems to be the number of long balls. A game like this may be the perfect situation to go over, rather than through, providing the forwards are able to retain possession.
Whether the Buddies can sustain a high tempo all game, I’m not sure. Accordingly, if there’s anything we’ve learned so far it is that we should be confident in the team’s ability to get the result over the 90 minutes, rather than in the first 45.
There is a new trophy kicking about the SPFL, - "‘the burst Aberdeen’s bubble Cup.” Every team is desperate to take their opportunity to lift it. We can only embrace this. Expectations are high and rightly so. One game at a time. Three points to play for. A league table to return to the top of.
Safe travels for those going to the game. COYR.
P.S. We’re probably looking at a normal debrief on Tuesday morning. If I can get something out on Monday AM and then follow up with a Hibs preview on the Tuesday I will.