Homecoming Scottish Cup Quarter Final

Celtic face a trip to St Mirren on Saturday in the Homecoming Scottish Cup Q/F, a tie that is live on Sky Sports 1 and HD1 at 12.15.

The sides only met last Saturday at Park Head where Celtic ran out comfortable winners 7-0, with Nakamura bagging a brace in a very one sided affair. Celtic have struggled in recent weeks to cement there place at the top of the league with just one win in six that includes four draws and one defeat against Motherwell it has only been this last week that they have found there form by winning there last two games once against St Mirren and a 2-1 midweek win against Kilmarnock, whilst The Buddies have also struggled. They have not recorded a win in there last eight with five draws and three defeats.

This will be the forth time that the sides have come up against each other this season with Celtic taking maximum points in the league, scoring 11(eleven) and conceding just one. However this game will be a very different one to those league games with both teams dreaming of reaching the Scottish cup final in may and the possibility of Europe. As we have seen in recent years with the likes of Gretna, Queen of the South and Dunfermline all reaching the final and even though they didn’t win they returned home with a place in Europe as Hearts beat Gretna on penalties after the game finished 1-1 then Celtic beat Dunfermline 1-0 and then last years cup final Rangers narrowly beat Queen of the South 3-2.

So far this season The Buddies have beaten Brechin City 3-1 to reach the last eight with Hamilton scoring twice and Wyness also getting on the score sheet. Celtic beat Dundee in a tight match eventually winning 2-1 with Scott Brown and Aiden McGeady scoring.

Since 2000 Celtic and St Mirren have only met once in the Scottish FA Cup and that was back in January 2003 when, Celtic ran out 3-0 winners with a certain Henrik Larsson scoring two. The team that day was;

22 – Magnus Headman
5 – Joos Valgaeren
16 – Ulrik Laursen
35 – Johan Mjallby
3 – Mohamed Sylla
4 – Jackie McNamara
8 – Alan Thompson
24 – Colin Healy
39 – Jamie Smith
7 – Henrik Larsson
9 – Chris Sutton

Celtic have won the Scottish cup the most with an astonishing 34 wins whilst their counterparts have won it three times however, they do boast that they are the last team to have won the competition with an all Scottish team when they beat Dundee United 1-0 in 1987 who also had an all Scottish team.