ST MIRREN have the opportunity to ease any fears that their run of six matches without a victory could see them sucked into a relegation battle by moving nine points clear of bottom club Ross County by beating them in Paisley tomorrow night.

Although the Buddies have scored only four times during that sequence, they have manufactured (and squandered) a string of openings during those games and Goodwin has no doubts that someone will soon be on the wrong end of a hiding from them.

“I think so,” he said. “I know I sound like a broken record after matches and it would’ve been easier for me on Saturday to come out and say that we’d been rubbish and Hearts deserved it but that wasn’t the case.

“The Hearts fans booed their team off the park at half-time because of how much we were on top in that 45 minutes. We’d been the better team but it’s all well and good me saying that: we have to capitalise on these situations.

“When we’re on top we have to get that goal – or a couple of goals – which would really calm everybody down. The longer Saturday’s game went on the more likely it was that Hearts, with the quality they have, would come into it.

“But I genuinely feel that someone is going to get a doing from us at some point. I saw Ross County hammering Dundee 5-0 two or three weeks ago and I believe that someone is going to be on the tail end of one of them from us and the sooner the better: on Wednesday, hopefully. However, I’d be more concerned if we weren’t playing well and creating chances. I’d be asking serious questions of the players and myself.

“You want to absolutely open the gap above the bottom teams but more importantly we want to close the one on the teams above us."