BEN RAMAGE
The build- up to Jim Goodwin’s s e cond campaign in charge of the Buddies couldn’t have been much more complicated.
As the confident Irishman joked this week, there wasn’t anything in the coaching courses to cover the plethora of issues he’s had to navigate ahead of tomorrow’s Premiership opener.
A course in crisis management would perhaps have been more beneficial, with a curtailed first season, SPFL court battle and a coronavirus scare within the camp all to deal with.
Yet the former Saints skipper appears to have sailed through all these issues safely. Recruitment has been strong, especially in defence where on paper he has assembled one of the most experienced back lines in the division.
Speaking at a first press conference this week for the first time in over four months, Jim reflected: “There was definitely nothing on the course for this.
“It hasn’t been a bed of roses or straight forward, but that’s not just me.
“Every manager has their challenges along the way.
“I just feel a lot more confident going into this campaign than what I did last season.
“The recruitment has been really good and we worked hard on it. Things had to change slightly from January. We thought we were going to be able to bring in a certain number of players but financially things have changed a bit so we have had to bring that down tighter.
“We have let 12 players go and only brought in six so we are lower on numbers ,but that gives me the opportunity to promote from the academy going forward as well.
“So we all have our difficulties along the way but I genuinely believe the six we have brought in have improved us.
“They are all strong characters and with the little hiccups we are going to have along the way, if you have strong minded people in the group then you can overcome them a bit better than perhaps the inexperienced teams.”
Goodwin has made it clear that anything less than an improvement on last season’s ninth place finish will be a failure in his eyes.
And he is hoping the lessons he learned from last season will stand him in good stead to help push the club up the table.
He said: “We definitely were too cagey last season and I take full responsibility for that as manager.
“I had only ever managed in the Championship before that and not being long a manager last pre-season was really rushed and frantic trying to get the players in on time for the first league game, never mind the first Betfred game.
“Pre-season is vital for any manager to get his ideas across to the players and make them aware of how I want them to play.
“I felt we were constantly chasing our tail in the Hibs game initially and then we had
Aberdeen and Rangers so they were almost pre-season friendlies for a number of players because they weren’t in the group all that long.
“From my own point of view I felt I was a little naive at times and a bit cautious and probably gave some teams a little bit too much respect.
“Whereas 12 months on I feel a lot more confident in my own ability and we don’t need to be as cagey.
“Maybe we can have a bit more of a go at the bigger teams in the league and really take the game to them because I felt for the second half of the campaign last season that’s where we played some of our better football, when we were taking games to teams and that’s when we picked up most of our points. So I have learned a hell of a lot.”
With as much preparation done as possible, the hard work to climb into the top six begins when Gary Holt’s Livingston visit St Mirren Park.
There’ll be no fans inside the ground, but Goodwin is till hoping his boys put on a show for the Buddies faithful watching at home.
He added: “We relied too heavily on Jon Obika last season and we need to chip in with more goals from all over the pitch.
“We have worked on that, midfielders getting into the box more and working on the wider ones being a bit more creative and ambitious and not being afraid to try things.
“Hopefully this season will be different and we will get off to a flier against Livingston.”