How injustice inspired threadbare St Mirren to avoid Old Firm embarrassment
A threadbare squad earned a scoreless draw with Celtic last week before restricting Rangers to two goals in an ultra-defensive performance at a near-empty Ibrox.
Alnwick, who himself only trained a few times in the fortnight leading up to the weekend and missed the resolute draw with Ange Postecoglou’s side, praised his team-mates with results that “show how good a group we’ve got”.
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Hide Ad“For the lads to put in two big shifts against the two best sides in the league, and to come out with one point and not get totally embarrassed or anything like that is I think a credit to the lads and how they’ve looked after themselves. Everyone seems to be healthy enough which is the main thing,” the goalkeeper said.
League officials have come under criticism for denying postponement requests with Buddies boss Jim Goodwin admitting he suggested forfeiting the points against Celtic on safety grounds, while Dundee boss James McPake was also critical at the weekend with many of his players calling off through illness and protocols.
Alnwick sympathised and hopes clarity can come through while maintaining player safety.
He added: “I think that’s what drove us through these two games, knowing that first game should probably have been off.
"We got the result and got through against Rangers. It’s difficult but obviously I’m not here to make the rules. Hopefully they can have a think about it over the next three weeks and come up with a plan.
"I think Dundee had 13 players and three goalkeepers. I don’t care what team it is, whether I don’t like the team or love the team, it’s not nice asking young lads to come in and do this sort of thing and putting players at injury risk.
"There were lads running on empty today and just happy to get through the game on adrenaline really. I think one of the pluses to take out is there are no injuries from Sunday, it was two hard games in a week.”