Story of Saints’ season is their failure to score
St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin was left to bemoan his team’s poor finishing as missed chances proved their downfall against Motherwell.
Jamie Mcgrath saw his first-half penalty saved by Liam Kelly while the visitors also passed up a number of other decent opportunities.
The Paisley side failed to make the top six by just two goals and Goodwin reckoned this display at Fir Park was just another chapter in that sorry story.
He said: “I’m scratching my head a little bit trying to work out how we’ve lost that game.
“I thought for the majority of it the players were excellent. They’ve completely dominated the game in terms of possession – we must have had about 70% of the ball.
“It’s probably the best we’ve played for a number of weeks in terms of building the game and we looked really tidy on the ball.
“But the afternoon sums up our season in terms of not being able to kill teams off. You would expect Jamie in the form that he’s in to score the penalty but it proves he’s only human after all!
“We were well in control of the game. If I were sitting here after a 0-0 I’d still have been frustrated.
“We put about 25 crosses into the box and got into good areas. The better team has lost the game.”
Goodwin, though, did praise his players for their commitment in a losing cause.
He added: “Normally after a defeat you’re really angry and disappointed but I’m actually quite satisfied with what the players gave me.
“It wasn’t one of those defeats where we didn’t turn up or didn’t try. I thought we did everything apart from putting the ball in the net.”
St Mirren lost Ryan Flynn to a hamstring injury late in the first half and Goodwin feared he would lose the veteran for most of the remainder of the campaign.
He added: “Flynny has been out of the team for a long time and sometimes that happens. The body isn’t used to that intensity.
“He’s overstretched for a ball and his hamstring has gone. So that will be two to three weeks.”