The scenes in the away end as Marc McNulty’s bundled a 96th minute winner into the back of the net gave St Mirren fans an agonising taste of what might have been, rounding off a pretty torrid week for the Paisley side.
The onlooking home support (including Tony Fitzpatrick in his last game as CEO before retirement) were left ruing yet another performance devoid of any of the characteristics we have previously prided ourselves on. While the 2-1 defeat to Dundee Utd hasn’t mathematically killed off St Mirren’s top six ambitions, it was the latest missed opportunity in a season that has felt full of them.
The defeat is the low point of what has been a tricky transitional period for St Mirren; the story of which goes back to 2017 in North Lanarkshire.
In his first two seasons at Motherwell, Stephen Robinson set about changing the side’s style of play from “long balls at a target man” to a more possession-based game. After an initial first season built on hard work and organisation (typically in variations of a 5-3-2), Robinson took his opportunity to begin forming the team in his own image – some effective recruitment bolstered by an emerging crop of young talent including David Turnbull, Allan Campbell and Jake Hastie.
Under Robinson’s 4-3-3 system, Motherwell moved away from long balls to a more fluid, flexible (and easier on the eye) attacking game. Without compromising on the core principles of previous seasons, possession, goals and – most crucially – results improved. The Steelmen saw themselves transformed from bottom six makeweights to European contenders, finishing the curtailed 2019/20 season in third place behind Celtic and Rangers.
At St Mirren, Robinson seems caught in the middle of wanting his St Mirren side to play “his way”, and not having the squad to do so. Recognising this, the manager has tried to implement a “Robbo Lite” version of his game that, in theory, plays to the current squad’s strengths. On Saturday, those strengths let us down. Big time.
After going ahead on 3 minutes via Jay Henderson’s (now customary against Dundee Utd) screamer, Saints managed to hold the opposition at a relative arm’s length. This forced Utd boss Tam Courts into a half time rethink, bringing on Nicky Clark and Ross Graham for the second period.
The double switch changed the game, with wave after wave of Utd attack exposing a litany of Saints’ defensive frailties. On 57 minutes Manchester Utd loanee Dylan Levitt took advantage of some slack defensive play by Alan Power to launch a lovely long-range equaliser into the back of Jak Alnwick’s net.
Even when Robinson introduced Conor McCarthy and moved to a back five (we’ll get back to the substitutions later. Oh, will we get back to them) we struggled to deal with the movement and endeavour of Utd’s front three of McNulty, Clark and Tony Watt. Home fans were left venting their frustrations at a defence pressed to breaking point, devoid of organisation, application and communication.
This would ultimately be our downfall when on 89 minutes a lofted Levitt through ball brought on a case of terminal indecision between McCarthy, Charles Dunne, Joe Shaughnessy and their keeper which resulted in Alnwick charging out and catching Watt with a knee to the chest, being shown a red card for his troubles.
With Alnwick now suspended until after the split, and his future almost certainly lying in Aberdeen with Jim Goodwin, the red card feels like a disappointing end to his time in Paisley.
With ten men on the pitch (Dean Lyness replacing Alex Greive following the dismissal), there was a sense of inevitability to McNulty’s late winner; the three points seeing Dundee Utd move up to fourth place in the league while St Mirren sit in ninth.
While it is natural for fans’ ire to be directed at a current manager in times of poor form, there is also a case to be made that what St Mirren are experiencing now can be attributed to a hangover from Goodwin’s time in charge. Issues that a good January/February perhaps masked are now costing us, the defensive solidity we previously built ourselves on has waned and we offer little going forward.
Without the wide players to make it work up top, Robinson’s 4-3-3 feels somewhat stunted. Case in point was the decision to play Greg Kiltie on the left of the front three. The ex-Killie man has impressed in spells in 2022, but out wide on Saturday he was unable to affect the game anywhere near the levels he’d like, managing just 11 touches in the 67 minutes he was on the pitch. With the return of Jordan Jones from injury, we will likely see Kiltie move to the right where he can hopefully have more of an impact on proceedings (Henderson impressed on Saturday but may lend himself more to coming off the bench).
The past few days have also seen criticism of Robinson’s mid-game decision to switch to a back five at 1-1.
With the score level, Robinson took of Kiltie and Henderson, replacing them with McCarthy and Greive, moving to a compact 5-3-2. It was a sound call in principle – Saints’ back four were being rag-dolled by the Utd attack – but ultimately it was one that played right into the visitors’ hands.
For all his managerial strengths, one criticism that could be levelled at Jim Goodwin is his lack of a plan B (think our eleven-game winless run in 2021 under his much-maligned 3-5-2), with his sides often feeling one note and bordering on predictable. The level of flexibility of system that Robinson (rightly or wrongly) asked for on Saturday saw us looking disjointed and disorientated, with the 82nd minute additions of Ethan Erhahon and Curtis Main too little too late as we slumped to defeat.
The nature of a club of our stature means we will likely see several first team players depart in the summer. This will give Robinson the opportunity to rebuild the squad in his image (a reported pre-contract agreement with Motherwell’s Mark O’Hara pointing to this already being underway).
In the meantime, however, there is still the pretty-much-deid-but-not-definitely-deid matter of a top six finish. We head to Robinson’s old stomping ground in two weeks to meet an eight placed Motherwell side in a remarkably similar state of misfortune to ourselves (we share the same points total, goal difference). Only four points separate Dundee Utd (39) in fourth and Aberdeen (34) in tenth. With two rounds of fixtures to go before the split, there could very much still be a place in the top half up for grabs for the winner of the contest at Fir Park, as long as we can stop getting in our own way long enough to realise it.
Andrew Christie 