ST MIRREN are in danger of slipping into a self-induced coma.

Struggling on the pitch and stagnating off it, they have become a club simply drifting along to no evident purpose.

It has left fans disenfranchised and disillusioned as they watch their team thrash about helplessly towards the foot of the SPFL Premiership, with the club's board of directors seemingly reluctant to intervene in an ever worsening scenario. The shareholders among the support will not hold back when they convene at St Mirren Park tomorrow for what should one of the fieriest annual general meetings of recent times.

There were eyebrows raised when Tommy Craig was appointed as manager in the summer and there has been little subsequent evidence to suggest it was a masterstroke that the rest of Scottish football just couldn't see. In his only previous managerial role, Craig lasted just five months in charge of Charleroi before the Belgians "decided to end this experiment" after he lost 14 out of 19 games, only just avoiding relegation.

His luck hasn't turned for the better since graduating from Danny Lennon's assistant to his successor, St Mirren having lost 10 of their first 14 league matches to slump to second bottom of the table. Craig has tended to focus on his team's shortcomings in attack but they have been no great shakes defensively either.

It is a particularly damning statistic that St Mirren are the only team from the eight divisions of senior British football yet to record a clean sheet this season.

Craig's old-school, brusque manner in the face of adversity means sympathy for his plight is in short supply. Those supporters present at Saturday's defeat away to Hamilton Academical - a third sucessive loss without a goal - did not hold back in venting their displeasure. Craig's response was to shrug it off, to burrow deeper into his bunker and insist that he will plough on regardless.

"Nothing at all," was his response to a question about whether he had any message for the beleaguered supporters. It is a stance in stark contrast to Lennon who, during the difficult times, would at least apologise profusely, the frustration etched right across his face.

Social media and fans forums have been awash with St Mirren supporters calling for Craig to be removed from office before it is too late. Those pleas have fallen on deaf ears, with reports suggesting there are no plans to change the manager at this juncture. Given the St Mirren board's reluctance to launch a thorough, extensive search for Lennon's replacement in the summer, it is difficult to see them having any great desire to do so just five months later.

There has been little interaction of late between chairman Stewart Gilmour and the club's supporters on his Twitter feed but he will have little choice but to face them tomorrow night. The last time they met at a Q&A session in September Gilmour described those panicking about the direction the club was moving in as "knicker-wetters", vowed "we will come through this" and said he had confronted those he described as "keyboard warriors". It was the sort of fighting spirit desperately lacking in his team's recent performances.

The backdrop to this growing antipathy between directors, managers and supporters is the proposed sale of the club. It is now five years since a coterie of directors put their combined 52% shareholding on the market and despite regular but fleeting enquiries from interested parties they are no closer to selling up.

Credited with saving St Mirren from oblivion with their takeover in 1998, most of the selling consortium have long since distanced themselves from the daily toil of running a football club and want out. The mirage on the horizon that someone one day might take the club off their hands perhaps explains a reluctance to delve into anything that might have financial repercussions; the indecision over Lennon's future last season, the decision not to look outside the club for his successor, the meagre refurbishment of the playing squad, the hesitation to call time on Craig's troubled tenure.

There has also been a reluctance to accept external investment in the club, a move that would dilute the selling consortium's position of strength. The St Mirren Independent Supporters Association (SMISA), having been repeatedly rebuffed in their offers to purchase unissued shares, have had to turn to other minority shareholders to increase their stake, their money going to private individuals rather than to the club itself as they would prefer.

The board's "sit tight and hope for the best" strategy, however, is unlikely to work forever. Apathy is rife among the support. The uptake of corporate hospitality has plummeted, while ticket sales for Saturday's William Hill Scottish Cup tie against Inverness Caledonian Thistle - a game not on the season book - look certain to suffer from an unofficial boycott, with fewer than 100 home fans said to have so far confirmed their attendance.

The spectre of relegation looms large, an outcome that would hugely damage any prospect of the club ever being sold. Dismissing Craig would cost money but it would be much lower than the price of lower-league football for a season if not more. Something, eventually, has to give.