Marcus Fraser confident Buddies will not be caught flagging on opening day

Marcus Fraser insists St Mirren will go to Celtic Park on Sunday confident of causing a Flag Day shock.

The Buddies were the visitors on the final day of last season when, after a 1-1 draw with James Forrest scoring a last-gasp equaliser for the home side, the Hoops lifted the Scottish Premiership trophy for the 13th time in 14 years.

Saints will be in the east end of Glasgow for the first league game of this season this weekend when the league flag is unfurled.

Asked if St Mirren can go one better this time and get the win, the 31-year-old former Celtic and Ross County defender said: “I think we can. We’ve got that belief in the changing room that we can do that.

“Every game that we go into we go to try and win.

“The manager will never set us up to go and draw, even the last game of the season, whatever we go and try and look to win the game.

“We’ve got that real belief in the changing room that we can go and do that.

“I think this week, leading up to the game, we’ve watched videos of Celtic, we’ve trained how we want to play against Celtic and I think everyone really believes we can go and win the game and get a result.

“I think that’s really important when you go to places like Parkhead where you’re going to be up against it.

“You’re going to be up against a good team, you need to defend well at times.

“But on the ball you need to go and be brave and create opportunities, which I think we’ve really progressed at over the last few seasons and hopefully we can take that again into this campaign.”