Robinson has sinking feeling in heavy loss
QUITE what it says about the standard of the Premiership that Motherwell were able to propel themselves back into the top six with their first victory in 12 games is open to interpretation.
This well-earned win, though, offers hope the worst of the bad times may just be over for them.
For St Mirren, the pain goes on under boss Stephen Robinson. And it may be about to get worse.
A day that started with them aiming for the top half of the table ended with the outlook decidedly more gloomy.
St Johnstone’s win at home to Livingston leaves the Buddies just six points clear of the relegation play-off place, with Rangers their final opponents before the split.
The Paisley side have now lost six out of seven since former Fir Park boss Robinson (right) returned to Scottish football to replace Jim Goodwin. They had chances in this game and could have scored more goals.
However, basic mistakes at the back, a glaring lack of organisation and the soft nature of the goals conceded do not ease bubbling concerns, heightened by the fact injuries also left them able to name just five substitutes.
Defensively, they were dreadful and that’s not what you want with a relegation battle looking a very distinct possibility.
Despite taking an early lead through Eamonn Brophy, they never looked solid or settled and conceded quickly to Sean Goss and Connor Shields.
Even when Conor McCarthy got them back into it, they couldn’t keep the door bolted, with Dean Cornelius putting the home side back in front and a Richard Tait own goal finishing things late on.
Mind you, it was some comic-cuts defending from the hosts that got the goal-fest off and running just before the quarter-hour mark.
Connor Ronan fired in a ball from the left and Stephen O’Donnell only managed to head it off team-mate Sondre Solholm Johansen and into the path of Brophy.
He still had plenty of work to do, of course, but turned on a two-bob coin and converted with aplomb from close range.
Within seven minutes, though, Motherwell had managed to get themselves in front with two goals in 60 seconds. Thanks, in no small part, to some awful work at the other end of the park by the Saints rearguard.
The equaliser came when Goss moved on to a low ball from the right by Shields and sent a first-time effort towards the bottom corner.
What the effort boasted in technique, it lacked in force, but that didn’t matter when goalkeeper Dean Lyness, in for the absent Jak Alnwick, got his full left glove to the ball and still allowed it to squirm into the net at the near post.
If Lyness was at fault for that goal, fingers could be pointed at plenty of others for Motherwell’s second.
St Mirren were caught napping as Kevin van Veen flicked on a ball just inside their half and were badly out of position as Shields nipped in past Joe Shaughnessy to leave himself oneon-one with Lyness. All credit to the big man for the finish, though, a quite exquisite chip — maybe even a dink — that gave the goalkeeper no chance.
The pace certainly didn’t let up as the half wore on.
Brophy smacked the post after spinning past Ricki Lamie just before the half-hour and McCarthy pulled the Buddies level with seven minutes to go until the break.
Home goalkeeper Liam Kelly failed to deal with a Jordan Jones corner fired under his crossbar, let the ball go through his hands and saw McCarthy pop up at the back stick to put it high into the net.
Kelly clearly felt he had been pushed, but referee Craig Napier was in no mood to give his vehement complaints a sympathetic audience.
Marcus Fraser then had a volley saved by Kelly before the Steelmen sneaked back in front in the closing minute of the first 45.
Joe Efford took the ball up the left and played an inviting pass across to the onrushing Cornelius. It looked like the midfielder should perhaps have struck the ball first-time towards the far corner.
As it was, he took a touch, weighed up his options and dispatched a cool, sidefooted finish past Lyness and in at the keeper’s left-hand post.
Callum Slattery came agonisingly close to making it 4-2 early in the second period with a rip-snorter of a shot from 25 yards that was touched onto the crossbar by Lyness. The ball did fall to Efford in the aftermath, but he couldn’t force it home.
Fraser then found himself just inches away from making contact with a dangerous Jones corner at the other end before brilliant work by Van Veen allowed the home side to put some real daylight between themselves and their visitors with 12 minutes left.
The big Dutchman surged up the left flank, taking a couple of red shirts out of the game, and fired a low ball into the area from the bye-line. Shields tried to get a foot on it, but the ball hit off Tait amid a ruck of bodies and duly crept in at the far corner.