The funereal tone of Jason Naismith's voice in the immediate aftermath of St Mirren's defeat, a surrender akin to how a chicken would accept its fate when coming face to face with a fox, delivered a predictable message: it's not good enough.

Noone needed to explain that to the booing 400-plus Buddies' supporters who witnessed a toothless bunch with no ideas, nothing resembling cohesion and a kind of "all right, hurry-up and get this over with" attitude of that chicken.

Brian Graham's 33rd minute opener for St Johnstone after an earlier effort from the big striker - starting for the first time since mid-January - struck the post, did not come close to underlining the hosts' superiority and by the time Steven Anderson headed home his goal on the hour mark, the white flag was already being flown in the Paisley side.

Indeed, Gary Teale, their manager, dubbed it their worst performance of the season as, aside from two attempts on goal, neither of which caused the heart of Alan Mannus, the Perth team's goalkeeper, to skip a beat, it produce nothing other than embarrassment.

"Lethargic" was how Naismith summed it up.

"We need to realise where we are as a group," he said.

"We're at the bottom of the league and four points adrift of the play-off place. It's not good enough.

"We need to start going into games with a better attitude, to be honest.

"We had no desire against St Johnstone. We let ourselves down and the fans, too.

"We have eight games left, one against Celtic. We need to start picking up points quickly or we're going to run out of games and we'll be relegated.

"People at the club will lose their jobs. That's how serious it is.

"Performances like the one against St Johnstone will get us relegated."

Few could have put it better and while the St Mirren players were wallowing in the gloom of their changing room, David Wotherspoon, who delivered another excellent performance for the Perth Saints, insisted that he and his colleagues did not discount the possibility of catching Dundee United, one place and two points above them in the league table, though with a coupe of games in hand.

"Its not unrealistic that we can catch Dundee United," he said.

"They've had a difficult run of games recently and we look to capitalise on that and get close to them.

"Their four successive games against Celtic were very tough ones and they might play a part in our efforts, but we've just got to focus on ourselves."

Teale spoke of introducing some of his younger, untried players into the fray as he surveyed a bunch of wishy-washy footballers devoid of anything resembling determination who have already accepted their fate.

What has he to lose?

One minute pundit.

24' Brian Graham's swerving shot from the edge of the area beats Mark Ridgers in the Buddies' goal but clips the outside of the far post.

33' 1-0 Graham is unmarked in front of goal as David Wotherspoon's cross lands for him a few yards from goal for the striker to tap it home.

61' 2-0 Steven Anderson knows exactly where Wotherspoon's corner-kick is going and he's there - at the back post - to head home St Johnstone's second.

80' Sean Kelly's ferocious strike from distance stirs St Mirren fans and allows Alan Mannus in the home goal to save in acrobatic fashion.