St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson reckons whoever claimed it’s easy to play against 10 men is a liar.
He jokingly bemoaned his side’s lack of a Ronaldo as they were almost beaten by St Johnstone, a man light for 45 minutes, at McDiarmid Park. Daniel Phillips’ dismissal offered the visitors the chance to punish their hosts – but it was Zak Rudden who gave St Johnstone the advantage with 15 minutes remaining.
That forced St Mirren scramble for a leveller, which they duly found via Alex Gogic. The infamous McDiarmid pitch made for an, at times, barely watchable affair but Robinson believes his team couldn’t have done much more with the conditions.
“I don’t know whoever invented that it’s easy to play against 10 men,” he said. “Unless you’ve got someone like Ronaldo who can win the game on his own! St Johnstone are very organised, have a brilliant manager in Callum Davidson so were going to be hard to break down. So you have to credit them as well.
“It was an opportunity missed to get another two points but ultimately we’re a point towards our end goal of finishing in the top six. We’ve kept St Johnstone at arm’s length. We created enough chances to win the game.
“When you’re playing against 10 men, they sit in and there’s no space to play in behind. On that surface, it’s very difficult to move the ball. I’m sure Callum will agree, it’s almost impossible to play any kind of quality football.
“But we delivered a lot of balls into the box, hit the crossbar and didn’t get an end product. When you go 1-0 down against 10 men, you could panic but we didn’t. We’ll take the point.
“I think we’ve only won one game here since 2018, which was when we won last year under me. It’s a tough place to come.”
