After the game Mark McGhee felt that "if anyone deserved to win the game, it was us". While his verdict was accurate enough it made no mention of the weakness we demonstrated when we had the ball close to the St Mirren box. It is significant that talk of a possible victory depended on the referee taking a different view of the challenge on Quinn in the last minute of the game. We had very few shots on target and none posed their keeper with any difficulty.
Smith in a first half scramble
The change forced by Fitzpatrick's absence did us no favours. Although Lasley worked hard enough on the right side of midfield he must have been embarrassed at times with his inability to deliver a cross beyond the first defender. On the other hand Klimpl seems to be settling well into the deep midfield position and he is beginning to look like a first team regular.
If the weather permits, we will have two games this week; the rearranged league game against Hearts on Wednesday and the fourth round of the Scottish Cup at Inverurie on Saturday. The forecasts suggest that we might escape postponement at the weekend but the Inverurie pitch was frozen on Saturday and it will take some time to thaw.
Wednesday's game gives us a chance to widen the gap over the bottom three and allow us to concentrate of the top six. Hearts have not scored in their last three outings and still hold fourth place. Let's hope for a winning start to the New Year at