Lessons To Learn

Although St Mirren 'keeper Chris Smith has been discharged from hospital there is no chance of him playing on Sunday against Celtic. Smith was admitted to Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow earlier this month after complaining of agonising headaches and swollen glands. Smith, who has missed St Mirren's last two games, is due to meet with a consultant today and manager Gus MacPherson hopes the cause of the illness can be identified. MacPherson said: "Chris is out of hospital and he has a meeting with a consultant. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it, get a better idea of exactly what the problem is. There is still a slight swelling but the frustrating thing for us, Chris and his family is we don't really know what's caused it. We know it's an infection but we really want to get to the bottom of it. It was a real body blow for Chris because he's been doing so well, was looking so confident and then this came along. The main thing is his health and make sure we get that back to what it should be, then the football will take care of itself."

MacPherson will continue to rely on Mark Howard in goal and has backed the former Arsenal trainee to bounce back from his disappointing outing at Falkirk. Howard was at fault for two of his former club's goals in a 4-0 win. However, MacPherson insists Howard is strong enough to come back from the errors against Celtic. MacPherson said: "Mark will be in goal and that'll be the challenge for him to see how he reacts to the disappointment of Falkirk. He got all the plaudits after the Dundee United cup game. Now we'll see how strong a character he is. He's worked hard in training, he's confident and now he's got to show it on the big stage. Players know themselves when they've made a mistake and none more so than a goalkeeper. There's no point in labouring on it, so we just said to him it's how he reacts to it. We've got confidence in him. He showed against Dundee United just how good a goalkeeper he is because he had three excellent saves and he's got to get back to that level."