Jim Goodwin has said that the decision to allow the game between St Mirren & Celtic during the week put players of both clubs at risk of exposure to COVID-19. The St Mirren boss, who will take his team to Ibrox on Sunday, said to Sky Sports that he asked that the Saints board consider refusing to play after their requests to have the game postponed were ignored by the governing body.
“It was my recommendation to the board that we should have refused to play. But I think the ramifications and sanctions that might have been brought against us would have made it difficult.
“It was the same last year when they tried to take points off us for the postponed Motherwell and Hamilton games. We won that battle, but we had to go down the legal route. I thought we could have done the same.
22nd December 2021; St Mirren Park, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland; Scottish Premier League football, St Mirren v Celtic FC; Nir Bitton of Celtic hits a free kick
“The welfare of the players always needs to be paramount. We don’t know what will happen next, we will do lateral flow tests and the boys’ incubation period isn’t over until Friday.
“We could still have a number of positive cases being carried around asymptomatically. I thought it was a hell of a risk to take, not just for our own players but for the Celtic players as well.”
The game proceeded despite Goodwin being forced to resort to youth players to assemble his matchday squad. Although, with a number of players likely to have been in contact with the stricken Saints players, there was still a chance that players could have been incubating the virus and be able to pass it on.
Celtic struggled to convert their possession and attempts into goals in the draw against St Mirren last night. Ange Postecoglou fielded a side with a number of forced changes to face Goodwin’s men but was forced to leave with a point. Celtic were already stretched as it was with injuries and a suggestion of a COVID-19 outbreak would have only resulted in more players being unavaliable for Ange Postecoglou’s side.
