'Season still has a good ending available if St Mirren start scoring'

[BBC]

Football's funny, isn't it? Not 'haha' funny. More like a sort of 'these post-match pints are starting to taste like tweeting opinions' funny.

St Mirren have slipped down into the relegation play-off spot. Twenty-seven league goals in thirty-five games, the lowest in the division, is the number that has brought us here more than any other.

We've suffered three consecutive league defeats - Celtic away, Livingston at home, Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Dundee.

Kilmarnock, who beat Dundee United 3-0 on Saturday, are now one point above us. They come to Paisley on Saturday, and if we thought this game was big before, it's now become comically so.

See? Funny.

The 1-0 defeat at Dens Park on Saturday had the complexion of a fair few others we've experienced this season.

We lost possession cheaply in our own half on twelve minutes, Cameron Congreve had the space to cross from the right, and Joe Westley prodded it in off the post.

For the next 78 minutes St Mirren had most of the ball without really troubling the Dundee goal. It's now 17 league games without scoring this season. 27 goals in 35 games. Relegated Livingston scored 39.

The tactical question is genuinely complicated. The best football we have played this season has come in a back three under Craig McLeish.

A back four - very clearly the interim boss' preference - demands a different kind of defensive organisation. The higher the wide defenders push, the more exposed the central pairing becomes (see Livingston's first goal. See Dundee's. See my phone being launched into orbit.). The distances between the lines become harder to manage without the right personnel.

At Dundee on Saturday the shape was altered out of necessity rather than design, with nine first-team players unavailable and a bench so depleted it featured players who would criticise me for not knowing who Clavicular is.

Whether a makeshift back three with Scott Tanser, Declan John or even Mark O'Hara filling in centrally would offer more stability than the back four, or whether the unfamiliarity of those players in those roles would create its own vulnerabilities, is the question McLeish has been sitting with. There is no clear answer.

Liam Donnelly may be available for Saturday. Shamal George is 50-50. Marcus Fraser came on at Dens being followed by a doctor with a big comedy net. Whatever XI McLeish puts out, it needs to score, because two league games without a goal against Livingston and Dundee has put us here. Kilmarnock on Saturday will demand something we have not produced in weeks.

Win and our Premiership status becomes more tangible. The season still has a good ending available to it.

Andrew Christie can be found at Misery Hunters