Will Marius Nicuale keep his place in the squad? Will Steven Watt make his debut? Which 4 will play in the midfield? Will Dargo make his debut for St Mirren against his old club? The answers to all these questions will determine who gets off the 0pts mark.

St Mirren v Inverness CT

Saturday 18^th August @ 3pm

Love Street, Paisley

SPL

Referee: William Collum

Others: Willie Dishington, Craig Young (Assistants), Steve Conroy (4^th official)

FIXTURES

Saturday 18^th August:

Dundee Utd v Hibernian

Hearts v Gretna

Motherwell v Kilmarnock

Rangers v Falkirk

St Mirren v Inverness CT

Sunday 19^th August:

Aberdeen v Celtic (Setanta, 2pm)

SPL RESULTS

Saturday 11^th August:

(Higdon) Falkirk 1-4 Celtic (Milne o.g, Miller, Nakamura, Hesselink)

(Zemmama 2, Fletcher, McCann) Hibernian 4-2 Gretna (Yantorno, McMenamin)

(O’Donnell, McCormack) Motherwell 2-1 Inverness CT (Tokely)

( Ferguson , Cousin) Rangers 2-0 St Mirren

Sunday 12^th August:

(Nicholson) Aberdeen 1-1 Hearts (Stewart)

Monday 13^th August:

(Gibson, Nish ) Kilmarnock 2-1 Dundee Utd (Hunt)

After 2 games, Rangers, Hibernian and Motherwell top the table with maximum wins and 6pts. Sadly St Mirren, Inverness CT and Gretna are currently bottom of the table with 0pts so far. However there is a long way to go!!

Barry Ferguson of Rangers and Michael Higdon of Falkirk lead the SPL goalscoring charts with 3 goals a piece.

PAST MEETINGS

The teams have played a total of 24 times (10 League, 4 Cup) with 66 goals (

Inverness CT: 14 wins (9 League, 4 Cup)

Draws: 6 (6 League, 0 Cup)

St Mirren: 4 wins (4 League, 0 Cup)

A GAME TO REMEMBER

For this weeks game to remember we take you back to the first ever match between the teams. It took place on the 10^th of August 1999 in the Scottish Challenge Cup.

The teams were as follows:

ST MIRREN: Roy, McLaughlin, Turner, Baltacha, Nicolson, Murray, Drew, Kerr, McGarry, Brown, Yardley. Subs- Mendes, Lavety, Ross.

The referee was Garry Mitchell and there were no bookings on the day. Two Inverness players still play for the club and there is one who is now the manager of the club.

FACTS BETWEEN THE TEAMS

• All League meetings between the teams have taken place in the First Division so far apart from three.
• Inverness CT
  have won all cup meetings between the sides.
• Inverness CT
  ’s Paul Ritchie is the top scorer in the fixture with 8 goals. Next is Dennis Wyness with 7.
• St Mirren’s top scorer in the fixture is Yardley with 3.
• The biggest win in the fixture was when Inverness CT won 5-0 on 6/5/2000. McCulloch got 2, with Xausa, Wilson and Bavidge all getting one goal.
• Inverness CT are unbeaten in 9 games against St Mirren at
  Love Street
  . The last time St Mirren beat Inverness CT at home was on the 12^th February 2000.

Marius Niculae (Inverness CT): The Romanian internationalist made his long awaited debut for the club last week down at Motherwell. Apart from looking a little tired at the end of the game due to a lack of match practice he looks like a good signing for the club. He is looking to get back into the Romanian squad and to do that, he will need to bang in the goals for the Highlanders first and there will be no better way to start than helping Caley Thistle get their first victory of the season this weekend.

Steven Watt (Inverness CT): Steven was signed on loan during the week from Swansea City for the season. He will add much needed experience to the defence and give good competition for Munro and McCaffrey. Whether he will start or not, only Charlie Christie knows!!

Craig Dargo (St Mirren): So far, the ex-Inverness and Kilmarnock striker is yet to make his debut for the Paisley Saints but it may come this weekend. At the time of writing this, we do not know if Craig will be fit enough but if he is, then I am sure Inverness will aim to prevent him scoring. I wonder what the reception will be from the Inverness CT fans when he touches the ball. He did wonders for us in his 2 years in the Highlands but he left us for a team that finished lower than us in the league last year. Should be interesting!!