St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin delighted to see his players revelling in new system

St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin is delighted to see his players revelling in his new system after being wary of changing his tactics halfway through the season.

The Buddies have won all three games in 2022 after Goodwin switched from a 3-5-2 formation to a 4-2-3-1.

St Mirren had not won in their final 11 matches of 2021 so the Irishman felt something had to change.

“The winter break came at a good time for us, obviously with the Covid problems that we had and from my own point of view as manager it was important to reflect on the first half of the season and what I could do differently and help the group,” Goodwin said.

“I looked a lot at what the other teams were doing as well. When you’re playing with a back three, a lot of teams are playing with a lone striker so you find those three centre-backs are only having to deal with one centre-forward.

“It means you have too many men at the back and not enough men elsewhere to deal with the potential overload in the middle of the pitch. We have great full-backs with good energy anyway and they are willing to get up the pitch.

“I don’t like changing formations halfway through a season, especially after working so hard on it in pre-season and the guys have had four or five months playing that way.

“But the winter break allowed us a two-week period to work tirelessly on the system and make sure the players were aware of the roles we were asking of them within that system.”

Saints followed up victories over Dundee United and Ayr with a 1-0 win over Aberdeen on Tuesday.

“Sometimes you have got to make these decisions as a manager and hope they pay off,” Goodwin said.

“Obviously the run that we were on wasn’t good enough for the group of players that we had. We have drawn 10 games in