St Johnstone 1 St Mirren 0: Ambition of top-six finish withers on the Vine

Sunday 24 February 2013

THE top six is still only a lofty ambition for St Mirren.

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By Chris Tait

The Paisley side have targeted a place in the top half of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League all season, but they have seldom touched base with that aspiration and this defeat to St Johnstone leaves them eight points behind sixth-placed Kilmarnock with seven matches left before the league splits.

The gap is not insurmountable, but any designs they have of bridging it were given another kicking in Perth when Rowan Vine swung his boot early in the second half to extend a sequence of just one league win in six attempts. It was a bruising realisation, not least as St Mirren now have to content themselves with the Scottish Communities League Cup final, where they face Hearts on March 17 at the national stadium. Admittedly, that game brings a certain lustre, but it will become hard to see amid the shadows of the bottom six once the lights at Hampden are switched off, notwithstanding the possibility of a place in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup if they can overcome Celtic on March 2. The challenge is to ensure that is not allowed to colour their remaining fixtures before the split, no matter how pale their chances of scaling the table have become. Yet there was little sense in feeling hard done by yesterday and the margin of defeat might have been wider since both Frazer Wright and substitute Gregory Tade sent headers against the crossbar in the second half. Tade should certainly have found the net in stoppage time only for another header to hit a post before his volley from the rebound was blocked by St Mirren goalkeeper Craig Samson.It seemed fitting then that St Johnstone forced their way over the line with a goal which required the same approach. Liam Craig sent a corner into the penalty area after 52 minutes and Murray Davidson might have bundled the ball over the goal-line before Vine made sure with a defiant, sweeping finish."We didn't care how we got the points – we just wanted to get them," said St Johnstone manager Steve Lomas. "A lot of the boys have now played three games in a week and we knew it wasn't going to be one for the purists."Among them was Danny Lennon. The St Mirren manager wants his side to play and their willingness to opt for a pass rather than a punt makes them an endearing team to watch, but the tactic is not always successful. The goal caused the Paisley side to go against their better judgment, though, and they became more direct in their search for an equaliser, even if it seemed a necessary tweak since any moment of creativity had not been enough to make the prospect of a breakthrough seem real.That was most evident in the performance of Esmael Goncalves, the on-loan Rio Ave striker providing the odd flick and dribble only to then miss two glaring chances in the second half. His first came minutes before the hosts took the lead when he poked a shot into the hands of St Johnstone keeper Alan Mannus, before he was later invited to show greater conviction when played in behind in home defence again. His shot wound up in the stand."I know where we are going wrong and that is in how few goals we are scoring," said Lennon, whose side now face Hearts on Wednesday. "Our creativity and delivery from wide areas hasn't been good enough."

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St Johnstone 1 St Mirren 0: Ambition of top-six finish withers on the Vine

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