St Mirren emerged from a slow start to roll over St Johnstone 4-0 to strengthen their grip on third place in the table. Here are three things we learned...
St Mirren will take some dislodging from third this season
November will open with St Mirren potentially seven points clear in third spot and not even their most optimistic of supporters would surely have predicted that in the summer.
They weren’t outstanding in this game by any stretch but manager Stephen Robinson has taken last year’s achievement in finally breaking into the top six and built on it, creating a squad that can find a way to eke out positive results even when they aren’t at their best.
Nine games into the season and they are level on points with Rangers, the only team to have beaten them in the league. They scored two outstanding goals to extinguish St Johnstone’s early exuberance, either side of one that was gifted to them. The first was a moment of individual brilliance by Keanu Baccus who, with St Mirren’s first shot of the game, found the top corner of the net with a shot from outside of the box.
Their third goal was expertly worked between Mika Mandron and Toyosi Olusanya, the former finishing well after being played in by his strike partner for his second goal of the game, before Greg Kiltie tapped in a fourth to round off St Mirren’s biggest league win of the season.
At the other end of the pitch, Alex Gogic expertly marshalled a backline that dealt with the likes of Nicky Clark, Chris Kane and Stevie May with relative comfort. St Mirren’s clean sheet was never really in doubt.
Based on budgets, resources, and all the rest of it, Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs all ought to be comfortably ahead of St Mirren in the table and yet none have so far demonstrated the same sort of consistency as the Paisley club, who are a force to reckoned with at home and always competitive on the road. The biggest worry, in fact, for St Mirren fans might be if one of those clubs come calling for Robinson, a far more experienced and wilier manager than either Steven Naismith or Barry Robson. If they can hold on to the Northern Irishman, then a third-placed finish can’t be ruled out, although he was predictably cagey about that prospect.
“It’s a very good start but that’s all it is,” he said. “We’ve not achieved anything yet. We’ve raised expectations with our performances and results, and the hard bit is trying to keep meeting those expectations. If we can do that, the end product could be very beneficial for the football club but we’re a long way from that.”
St Johnstone can’t afford to keep shooting themselves in the foot
Little wonder that St Johnstone manager Steven MacLean looked like he might self-combust in rage after watching St Mirren move two goals in front early in the second half. His team had been competitive until that point – arguably the better team in the first half – only to concede a soft goal just after the turnaround. Goodness knows what James Brown was thinking as he tried to usher the ball back to his goalkeeper but Mandron was alert to it to finish well and all but end St Johnstone’s chances of salvaging something.
There were things to admire in some of their first-half play – debutant Diallang Jaiyesimi looked promising – but teams battling against relegation, as looks the fate of the Perth side who are five points adrift at the bottom, can’t afford to gift goals to the opposition.
The lack of fight and heart after that second goal spoke volumes, too, with a clearly emotional MacLean warning that some of those players might not play for him again.
“The goals we lost are unacceptable,” he said. “It’s the basics of football. In the second half, we just imploded and it looked like a couple of players chucked it. It is my responsibility and some of these players will be lucky if they play for me again. It is not happening under my watch and it might be I need to play young boys. I thought it was really, really poor.”
Ryan Strain improves his reputation from a seat in the stand
St Mirren were without their wing-back due to suspension and they weren’t the same attacking force without him. His replacement, Ryan Flynn, is as dependable as they come but at 35 years old doesn’t have the engine of old to motor up and down all day. Strain is out of contract in the summer and if St Mirren can’t persuade him to pen a new deal then he will be a great pick-up for an English Championship club or even the likes of Hibs, Hearts or Aberdeen.
