These are dark days for St Mirren. Kilmarnock's draw with Falkirk on Saturday may have prevented them from dropping to the bottom of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League table. Yet, of all the teams with the threat of relegation currently hanging over them, they are displaying the poorest form.
Their meek capitulation to Motherwell at their new stadium - a venue where they are still waiting to record their first league win - was alarming and it is all getting too much for their supporters. Dozens of them filed out of the ground after only an hour when David Clarkson headed the visitors 3-0 ahead.
Gus MacPherson's men will seek to record their first post-split win against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Wednesday in their third last league game. There will, though, need to be a stark upturn in fortunes for them to achieve that aim and then go on to secure their top flight survival. On the evidence of the weekend's meagre fare it is difficult to see how they will do so.
Perhaps the return of Stephen O'Donnell, who has been sidelined for seven months with a knee injury, will galvanise them. The young midfielder came on for Stephen McGinn and promptly netted a goal which produced a spirited if fruitless late fightback.
O'Donnell certainly has enthusiasm for the fight ahead. "It has been frustrating sitting in the stands as the boys have struggled," he admitted. "There is no getting away from it, we are in a relegation battle.
But there is a belief in the dressing room that we have the character to stay up."
Clarkson, O'Donnell's cousin, has enjoyed an altogether more enjoyable campaign; his double took his tally for the 2008/09 season to a highly respectable 13. He now has the very real prospect of a return to European competition, courtesy of Scotland finishing third in UEFA's Fair Play League, to look forward to.
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