St Mirren 0 Dundee Utd 3

Goal-shy Saints suffer worst start in 94 years.

YOU do not have to look far to find the root cause of St Mirren’s worst League start in almost a century. Beaten here by a bright Dundee United side, the Paisley Saints have now suffered four straight SPL defeats their poorest opening run since 1920.

And the reason why is that in more than six hours of football they have yet to score a goal. Put simply, no goals means precious little chance of picking up any points. Decent in their display a couple of weeks back at Fir Park, they were tripped up by a Motherwell side they outperformed in open play.

That wasn’t the case here, though, and the hosts’ fourth defeat on the spin was well deserved.

“It is difficult to defend a 3-0 defeat,” Saints manager Tommy Craig admitted. “If you don’t put the ball in the back of the net, you are going to find yourself in the position we are in.

“Until we do that, we are going to be disappointed after each game, and we don’t want that. But we know it could be so different because we are playing well in almost all of the games.

“So, although we know the confidence is going to take a knock, we have to keep our nerve.”

But, as he said, they need goals. The concern on the face of skipper Steven Thompson, watching from the stands because of a groin injury, was clear to see as Callum Ball, Ross Caldwell and co laboured in vain to get on

the scoresheet. There was, to be a fair, a strong case for the defence in this instance. Unable to post a clean sheet in the League from December 2013 through to May of this year, the Tangerines reached the stage where they

were effectively acting as their own handicappers.

With attacking stars such as Gary Mackay-Steven, Stuart Armstrong, Nadir Ciftci and, not quite so often, Ryan Gauld, about the place, often it didn’t actually matter.

When they all clicked at once, they were more than capable of hitting not just two goals but four or more. Such porousness is a problem, though, and it caught up with them as the season slipped away from them.

If he hadn’t already seen enough, the painful Scottish Cup Final defeat to St Johnstone at Celtic Park surely made up manager Jackie McNarama’s mind it was time for change.

Andrew Robertson was allowed to go off to Hull City for the almost eye-popping fee of £2.85 million. Another to depart was Gavin Gunning. Heavily linked with a move to Rangers, he eventually went south to Birmingham City.

And in came new faces. Hull, buyers of Robertson, were decent enough to provide a replacement in the shape of 21-year-old Conor Townsend, sent up to Tannadice on a season-long deal.

More impressive still was the capture of ex-Bolton man Jaroslaw Fojut from Tromso. Also a target of champions Celtic, he added strength and solidity straight away. And with Callum Morris, brought in on a two year deal from Dunfermline Athletic, quickly striking up an understanding with the Pole, they have been pretty good.

Here they rode their luck as Saints played their part in what was a bright, positive start from both teams. However, this soon fizzled out as a succession of free-kicks were sent almost comically off target.

United, though, had what Saints didn’t a man capable of breaking the deadlock. And after Chris Erskine showed the way, the visitors used the platform he gave them to run out convincing winners.

There was, as the United boss said, an argument that the third made the final scoreline more flattering than it should have been, but it would have been a cruel man who denied the young sub his first goal for the Tangerines.

Craig, meanwhile, can only hope it will be Saints’ turn soon.