Middlesbrough’s onloan goalkeeper Zach Hemming was singled out for special praise from one of the St Mirren coaching staff at the weekend as they continued their impressive run of form.
Zach Hemming, enjoying another spell north of the border, kept his fourth clean sheet in seven appearances, as St Mirren beat Motherwell 1-0 to progress to the quarter finals of the Viaplay Cup. He was given a special mention by the assistant manager in a post match interview aired on the St Mirren Twitter site.
A clearly impressed Diarmuid O’Carroll said, “It wasn’t one of our flashiest performances but it was a very good team performance and special credit must go to the goalkeeper and the back five.
“Scott Tanser and the centre-halves and Ryan Strain and then the big man behind them, yet again very, very solid. He makes one fantastic save and comes and claims things as much as he can as well.”
It means that the side nicknamed the Paiseley Saints have won six on the trot, with Saturday’s winning goal scored by former Boro and Birmingham midfielder Caolan Boyd-Munce who says ‘he is the happiest he’s ever been in his career.’
Elsewhere, Matthew Hoppe was an unused substitute as San Jose Earthquakes got their campaign off to a winning start, winning 1-0 against Vancouver Whitecaps.
Zach Hemming’s fortunes not replicated
From a happy keeper to a bitterly disappointed one. Another stopper who is on loan from Middlesbrough is Liam Roberts. He had an impressive start to life at Barnsley, with his head coach Neill Collins insisting he will be huge for the Yorkshire club. However, the Tykes lost 3-1 to Oxford at the weekend and Roberts himself showed his displeasure in an interview with the club’s website. “Heightened emotions at the minute,” Was the immediate response from the 28-year-old.
He went on to insist that they still had enough chances to take something from the game, adding, “Very disappointed. We know it’s not good enough. Now, we have to flip the positives into it. We had good chances to actually go and win the game ourselves. We just need to shut up shop. Take our chances and be ruthless. We need to be ruthless in both boxes. That’s what I’ll take from it.”
Sol Brynn who is Boro’s third goalkeeping loanee, is still watching on at Leyton Orient as he recovers from injury.
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