St Johnstone cruised to a 2-0 win over St Mirren at McDiarmid Park on Saturday, a result which leaves the visitors four points adrift at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership.
A goal in each half from Brian Graham and Steven Anderson, both of which were set up by David Wotherspoon, proved decisive to move Tommy Wright's side up to fifth in the table.
St Mirren came into the game as the league's lowest goalscorers and struggled to make an impact going forward, with Viktor Genev forcing a good save from Alan Mannus in one of their few attempts at goal.
It was the home side who created all of the early chances and Graham, who had come into the team in place of Danny Swanson, had two opportunities in the first five minutes.
One opening saw the on-loan frontman impressively denied by Jason Naismith just as he prepared to pull the trigger, before he headed wide from Wotherspoon's free-kick moments later.
Michael O'Halloran cut inside and shot wide before a free-flowing move involving Wotherspoon and Dave Mackay set up Graham at the far post, but he could only fire straight at goalkeeper Mark Ridgers with the angle closing.
Graham was looking like the most likely source of a goal and he was inches away from scoring midway through the first half. A neat exchange with O'Halloran gave the striker a chance to spin inside and fire in a right-footed effort which clipped the outside of the post.
Graham headed another effort wide from a threatening Wotherspoon cross before he finally made the breakthrough in the 33rd minute.
Wotherspoon was again the creative source, chipping in a delivery from the right. Graham was inexplicably allowed to bring the ball down inside the six-yard box and comfortably slide his finish past Ridgers.
St Mirren barely mustered a meaningful attempt on goal in the first half but they almost made a perfect start to the second period. Stephen Mallan broke from midfield and slipped through a pass to James Dayton, who steadied himself before dragging his finish wide of the far post.
At the other end, St Johnstone were inches off-target with two headed efforts. The first chance saw Graham's diving attempt fall just past the post under pressure from the away defence before Anderson's header drifted just off-target from Wotherspoon's free-kick.
Anderson made no mistake on 62 minutes, though, charging in unchallenged to head Wotherspoon's corner high into the net to double the hosts' advantage.
St Mirren attempted to respond when substitute Yoann Arquin's flick-on found Genev, whose snapshot was impressively repelled by Mannus.
The visitors were committing men forward in an attempt to get back into the game and were almost picked off on the break when Graham found Wotherspoon, but the midfielder rushed his finish having made a long supporting run.
Sean Kelly forced Mannus to parry a late long-range attempt but St Mirren had struggled to create clear-cut chances and St Johnstone comfortably held on.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article