St. Mirren vs Hearts Prediction: A competitive contest ahead

St. Mirren host Hearts on Saturday and have a chance to tie for fourth place in the Scottish Premiership by winning the match. But the visitors come into this game hoping to get closer to European qualification, and if they win at the SMISA Stadium, they will have done just that.

After suffering a 2-1 defeat to Hibernian in their most recent Premiership match, St. Mirren will be hoping for a stronger showing here. During that game, St. Mirren had 49% possession of the ball and 13 shots on goal, with only four of those shots being on target. Alex Greive was the lone player for St. Mirren to score in the 64th minute. On the other end of the field, Hibernian had 13 shots on goal, with six of them actually hitting the target. Will Fish and Élie Youan each scored a goal for Hibernian in the 4th and 23rd minutes, respectively. St. Mirren have scored a total of nine goals throughout their previous six matches, which works out to an average of 1.5 goals scored per contest under the leadership of Stephen Robinson.

Since Hearts' most recent Premiership contest against Celtic ended in a loss, the visiting team will hope for a different outcome here. During that match, Hearts held 29% of the possession and had six shots on goal, but none of them were successful in scoring. On the other end of the field, Celtic had 12 shots on goal, three of which were on target. The goals for Celtic came from Kyogo Furuhashi in the 67th minute and Hyeon-gyu Oh in the 80th minute. Taking a look at their recent form, Hearts have been on the receiving end of goals in six of their previous six encounters, with their opponents scoring 11 goals in total. Looking at the pre match statistics, Hearts have not lost to St. Mirren in any of the three league games that have taken place away from their home stadium in the most recent season. Meanwhile, Hearts are winless in their past seven matches played away from their home venue in the league.

St Mirren possible starting lineup:

Carson; Strain, Fraser, Dunne, Tanser; Baccus, Gogic, O'Hara; Kiltie; Greive, Main

Hearts possible starting lineup:

Clark; Hill, Sibbick, Rowles, Kingsley; Devlin, Haring; Oda, Shankland, McKay; Ginnelly

Both of these teams are just too bad, and it is impossible to recommend backing either one of them in this contest. On the other hand, given that the odds of winning are the same, we have no choice but to anticipate a match with a low number of goals scored. As a result of the poor level of play displayed by both sides coming into this competition, a tie might be the most appropriate outcome.