Jim Goodwin is desperate for St Mirren’s angst in Aberdeen to come to an end when the Buddies travel to Pittodrie on Saturday.
The Paisley side beat the Dons 1-0 at home in the second Ladbrokes Premiership game of the season but their last victory in the Granite City was in May 2011, when Gareth Wardlaw’s second-half strike ensured their top flight survival that season.
In the midst of another battle to retain their Premiership status – St Mirren are in 10th place but one of four clubs including Hearts, Hamilton and St Johnstone on 11 points – former Buddies captain Goodwin is hoping to make it 13th time lucky after a run of 12 matches at Pittodrie without victory.
“I was actually part of that team that won up there,” he said.
“It’s always a difficult venue to go to, there’s no getting away from it because Aberdeen are a right good team.
“But we just have to be as positive and you’ve got to have that belief.
“You can’t think negatively going into any game and we are capable of beating anybody on any day.
“We showed that against Aberdeen down at our place. No doubt they’ll be desperate to reverse that scoreline.
“But we just continue doing what we’re doing in terms of the back to middle and sharpen up a wee bit in front of goal and we won’t be far away.”
Goodwin, who took over as boss at the end of June, will be looking to strengthen his squad in January for what is likely to be a tough second half of the season.
The former Alloa boss stressed the importance of stability at a club who are on their third manager in 18 months and who have recorded a huge turnover of players in recent transfer windows.
He said: “There have been far too many changes in manager in recent years and it does mess up the whole recruitment programme.
“We’ve got a programme in place here that we’ve been talking about since I came in the door.
“Obviously, there wasn’t a great deal of time between me coming and the window closing in the summer so we had to act fast.
“But we’ve had a little bit more time to prepare for the January window coming.
“We’ve identified the positions where we think we need to strengthen and we are continuing talks with clubs and with representatives of these players and hopefully we can get the ones in that are going to make the difference in the second half of the campaign.
“Stability is a massive word, there’s no doubt about it. Stability from the staff point of view but also stability from the players’ point of view as well.
“It doesn’t need to be a huge turnover, like last January where there was maybe a dozen players coming in.
“I don’t think we need that amount of players again this time around.
“And if we can get a couple of real bits of quality in then that might make all the difference.”
