Mair is backing old buddy Goodwin to get better of Light Blues

LEE MAIR was in the St Mirren defence the last time the Buddies recorded a league victory over Rangers, almost ten years ago.

Now he’s backing ex-teammate Jim Goodwin to repeat the feat in Paisley at lunchtime today.

Goodwin put Steven Gerrard’s side to the sword with a memorable 3-2 win in the quarter-final of the League Cup last season, ending a 48-year wait for a cup success against the Glasgow giants.

Mair believes that the champions are not the same team that swept to the title without losing a game in the previous campaign.

With the hosts on a six-match unbeaten run (winning their last three), Mair, now an entrepreneur, is confident his old club can dent Rangers’ hopes of retaining the championship by prevailing in the SMISA Stadium.

‘The current St Mirren team is on a high while Rangers, although they’re top of the league, aren’t firing on all cylinders,’ he said. ‘This isn’t the Rangers of last season, who reminded me a little of their great teams of the past — the ones with Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne or Michael Mols and Marco Negri — in that you’d probably have taken a 3-0 defeat before you’d even kicked off against them.

‘However, the aura they had when they went through the league unbeaten isn’t there any longer and that’s why I’m sure Jim and his players will be confident they can keep their momentum going by getting something from this one.’

Mair is still asked about the time Saints beat Ally McCoist’s team 2-1 at home on Christmas Eve, 2011.

‘I remember that game well,’ he said. ‘Lee Wallace put Rangers ahead early on but Lee McCulloch was then sent off for elbowing Graham Carey in the face. That gave us a lift and we scored twice

in a minute right on half-time, through Aaron Mooy and Paul McGowan, to give us a lead we held on to for the rest of the game.

‘They didn’t really trouble us and my real worry was when they went down to nine men after defender Dorin Goian was sent off near the end for hauling back our Gary Teale.

‘Myself and a few of the other lads had played in the League Cup final against Rangers the previous year when they played with nine men for the last 20 minutes after Danny Wilson and Kevin Thomson had been red-carded but Kenny Miller still managed to get the only goal for them with six minutes left.

‘Christmas is a great time to get a win bonus but it’s even more special if you’ve beaten Celtic or Rangers to do it. I’d rather have swapped that result for the one in the final, though, because that was the worst day of my football career. It still sticks in my throat that we lost, so it was a relief to get over the line that day, although we deserved it.’