ST MIRREN'S seemingly unstoppable slide out of the Premiership is a source of grave concern to club stalwart Ricky Gillies but he has indicated that he predicted the collapse last summer.
Gillies, who gave 12 years of service to St Mirren, has been bitterly disappointed to see his old club become detached at the bottom of the table, four points adrift with eight games remaining.
He has laid the blame for the demise firmly at the boardroom door citing four main reasons for the current perilous predicament - the appointment of Tommy Craig to replace Danny Lennon, a failure to strengthen defensively, the uncertainty of the club's sale and the cheap transfer of key player Kenny McLean to Aberdeen.
"Basically, last summer was the beginning of the end for St Mirren and it is starting to unravel in front of our eyes right now.
"They got rid of a manager who won them a cup and kept them in the league and they simply promoted the assistant manager and brought in a couple of players," the 38-year-old said. "It was all about saving money, as far as I could see. Unfortunately II think the bottom is going to fall out of St Mirren this season. I fear for them this season. I think they will either go down or be in a play-off place and you would have to say that right now Ross County and Motherwell have more in the tank."
Gillies came through the ranks at Love Street in the 1990s and was sold to Aberdeen in 1997 but returned for a second spell in 2000.
He believes one of the basic problems has been leaking goals - and that won't help when they face Celtic on Friday night.
He said: "The last three seasons they have either been bottom or second bottom defensively and that's somethng that should have been identified.
"You can't just continue to be in that state every year and hope to survive. The only reason they stayed up in previous years was because of the goals the offensive players were scoring but this year they don't have that."
St Mirren have effectively been up for sale for six years now - with talks breaking down with two parties this season - and Gillies insists it has had a telling effect on the players.
He said: "I don't think the whole selling of the club issue has helped at all and it has been similar to the Rangers situation where there was no proper leadership.
"The Rangers players have taken a lot of stick, but until recently the complete lack of leadership of that club definitely played a factor in what was happening on the field.
"I think to a lesser extent St Mirren are in the same situation. There were some people interested but for one reason or another it wasn't sold.
"Now it's plodding along and the players have no idea of the direction of the club and there is no real leadership. What happens if they do go down? You wouldn't have thought the board could ask for the same money if they are in the Championship.
""I was surprised that Kenny McLean signed a new deal but I imagine there must have been a clause which allowed him to go for a certain amount of money and Aberdeen obviously met that figure.
"One man doesn't make a team but by the same token to lose such an influential player who does so well offensively was a big loss to St Mirren.
"Could they have waited until the summer? It's the same with Gary Mackay-Steven going to Celtic.
"Dundee United couldn't refuse the money for Armstrong but they should have turned down the £250,000 for Mackay-Steven."
Gillies was in the last St Mirren team to relegated but in 2001 when they took the battle to last day of the season but Dundee United held their nerve to finish three points clear.
He seriously worries for the future if it happens this season and knows the Buddies must beat Motherwell and Ross County before the split to have a fighting chance.
He added: "I remember we were four points behind Dundee United going into the split and we beat them at Love Street to cut it to one point and that gave us some hope.
"At that time Dundee United were just that little bit stronger than us and they managed to win all four of their remaining matches. It was not a nice experience and there are major consequences.
"There will be redundancies and the fans will be sick - there will be ramifications throughout the club. If St Mirren go down they will be battling with either Hibs or Rangers - or maybe both - to get back up so that will be extremely difficult. Basically it's a disaster if they go down."
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