I WILL forever be grateful to Alan Stubbs for the way in which he offered myself and my family tremendous support when I was fighting my own cancer battle.

He was never off the phone and was a constant support to my family. It’s not something that I am liable to ever forget.

But I guessing that he wasn’t taken aback this week when St Mirren announced a parting of the ways. It seems that in the modern game you just do not get the time to try and make your mark at a club.

We were barely out of August when the call was made that it wasn’t working out for St Mirren but I cannot help but feel that it was very premature.

They have obviously been proactive in getting Oran Kearney in and we’ll see if that gives the Paisley side a lift going into Friday night’s game against Celtic.

This is the first game for Brendan Rodgers’ side since the win over Rangers. I know that it was only a 1-0 victory but over the piece they absolutely hammered Rangers.

With the next phase of games and Europa League matches looming into view, this is where you expect Celtic to kick on a bit now.

There isn’t the distraction of the transfer window or anything like that so it really is a case of focusing on the job at hand. 

At the very beginning of the season I thought they were playing some very fluent football and I was sure they would blow a few teams away.

Time to turn that level on again.