West side story

Inverness are on the road again with a day out at Paisley to visit struggling St Mirren on Saturday. That will be our fourth trip to the wild west in a month, having also toured Maryhill, New Douglas Park and the scheme down Kilmarnock way. All wins, incidentally.

The Buddies are having a torrid time of it but that does not mean this will be an easy ride for Inverness as they will now be scrapping for every point available to help them climb away from the relegation battle with County and Motherwell.

Inverness received a massive boost late in the week. Not the news that 50 shades of Grey was being shown at the cinema, but when Josh Meekings signed on for another two years. Josh has been a mainstay at the heart of our defence over the last couple of seasons and his partnership with Gary Warren is one of the reasons our defence is normally pretty miserly. Still a young lad with plenty of pace and power he will certainly gain more by staying at Inverness for another couple of seasons before heading on to pastures new. Great investment by the club.

Another bit of good news, and I say this with some trepidation is that Yogi has been named Manager of the Month for January. That accolade normally brings with it a curse and we will be watching with interest to see if it affects Inverness.

This season we seem to be poles apart in terms of quality and teamwork, certainly the league table will vouch for that. However, we do have something in common. St Mirren lost top scorer Kenny McLean to Aberdeen during the January sales and at the same time Billy Mckay went to Wigan.

We have played St Mirren four times already this season. A 0-1 league win in October was followed by a draw at the same venue in the Scottish Cup. The replay up North saw Inverness win comfortably by 4-0, but the league game in January was a much tighter affair which Inverness won 1-0, thanks to a Billy Mckay goal, (where is he when you need him?).

St Mirren have failed to win a single home game in the league so far this season, although they did manage to beat Dunfermline Athletic in a league cup game in August. 20 goals for and 41 against sees them sit second bottom of the table whereas third placed Inverness can boast 35 goals for and only 22 goals conceded.

St Mirren added a couple of players in the transfer window, attacking midfielders Emmanuel Sonupe from Spurs academy, and Kieran Sadlier, an Irish u21 international. Both could feature at some stage this weekend and Yohaan Arquin returns after suspension.

Inverness will have to do without Richie Foran and Dean Brill, and a similar starting line up to last week is anticipated. A new name for the injured list is Aaron Doran who has a groin strain.

Prediction for this one is another narrow win for Inverness to pile on the woe for the Buddies.