The reasons behind St Mirren’s dreadful start to the season

There’s a sense of déjà vu surrounding St. Mirren as the 2016/17 Championship season moves into its sixth weekend. Two points from the first five games are all they’ve mustered from their early fixtures; a points tally which sees them below everyone. They go into Saturday’s game at Dumbarton with a team low on confidence and a manager under pressure. Which would be bad enough if they’d not had a similar experience 12 months ago.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. St. Mirren entered the 2015/16 campaign as a newly-relegated Premiership side. In a league still featuring Rangers and Hibs expectations were tempered, but a top four finish still seemed realistic. The club had recruited Ian Murray after repeated success at part-timers Dumbarton, and they’d managed to maintain a competent squad which mixed experienced (Andy Webster, Jamie Langfield) with exciting youth (Stevie Mallan, Lewis Morgan).

It did not take long for hopes to dwindle though, as Murray’s charges suffered a catastrophic first half of the campaign. The first league win didn’t arrive until the 5^th of September and they only won once more – away at Livingston in mid-October – before Murray tendered his resignation in December. In total, they managed only 12 points from 15 games. Rather than looking towards the promotion play-offs, St. Mirren had found themselves embroiled in a relegation battle for the second season running.

Alex Rae replaced Murray and, to his credit, managed to right the listing ship. While the away form continued to veer from average to downright poor, Rae’s St. Mirren at least began to pick up points at home. A five-game unbeaten run at St. Mirren Park, which included four wins, improved the atmosphere immeasurably, to the point that the promotion play-offs began begin mentioned for the first time since the previous August, although rarely in public.

That talk was finally silenced following a home defeat to Raith Rovers on a warm late-March evening, but there was at least some small shoots of recovery. It was something to build on.

Build on it, Rae did. The summer transfer window was relatively successful – amongst others, they brought in returning hero John Sutton, fellow striker Ryan Hardie (who’d had a promising loan spell at Raith the season just gone) and experienced centre half Gary MacKenzie. Allied to that, St. Mirren fended off approaches for their bright young thing, Stephen Mallan.

The combination of a seemingly reasonable transfer window and the steady results under Rae in the second half of 2015/16 meant that St. Mirren were once again fancied to challenge for the top four.

Once again though, St. Mirren have so far failed to rise to the challenge. After last week’s 3-1 defeat to Queen of the South, Rae was keen to put much of the blame at the door of his players.

“This has nothing to do with tactics,” he said, “this is down to individuals who are unfortunately crumbling a bit under the pressure.”

It’s been noted on this site before that the ‘individual mistakes’ defence is often the last bastion of a desperate manager and it certainly seems to apply to Rae.

To an extent, he has a point. The defence and goalkeeper have both been guilty of a number of inexplicable – and oddly similar – gaffes so far. It would be harsh to criticise anyone but the players themselves for those.

It’s true that none of those defenders – Andy Webster, Gary Irvine, Gary MacKenzie, Jack Baird, Jason Naismith – or Langfield in goals have covered themselves in glory so far. Webster, especially, looks like his best years are well and truly behind him – his ponderous decision-making and frightening lack of pace are being exposed on a weekly basis.

Yet, rather than wash his hands of them, there are areas Rae can work on with his defence. From being routinely exposed in-behind, to their inability to defend the six-yard box, scoring goals has been too easy for their opponents. While Rae will no doubt point out that he’s worked on these areas in training, the message is clearly not getting through.

Further up the field, there’s also little evidence of a team settling into place. There were complaints during Murray’s tenure that the football was unappealing on the eye but Rae’s arrival has, in truth, done little to improve the aesthetics.

Rae’s need to play two central strikers (more of which later) means his side has struggled for invention. It’s meant Stevie Mallan – off-key so far this season but clearly their most inventive player – has been lumbered with a place in either a static midfield four or a confused five, rather than behind a striker where he’d surely be more effective. It’s also meant that Rae’s side have largely reverted to long, hopeful balls into channels, or onto John Sutton’s forehead.

Pushing Mallan forward – and moving to a 4-2-3-1 – would seem a more sensible option for St. Mirren. Not only would it allow Mallan additional space, but it would shore up the defensive midfield positon, which currently looks fragile. Currently sitting beside Mallan, Kyle Hutton currently seems incapable of shielding the fragile defence on his own.

It surely wouldn’t be a panacea, but it might be a start. Unfortunately for St. Mirren fans, Rae seems wedded to the idea of two strikers. It was mentioned earlier in this piece that the summer transfer policy had been relatively successful, and the crucial word in that sentence was ‘relatively’. While the players brought in largely seemed of a good standard, there was one nagging issue with Rae’s transfer policy: lop-sidedness.

Instead of shoring up the defensive midfield position, Rae couldn’t help sticking his fingers into the jar marked ‘centre-forward’. Along with Sutton and Ryan Hardie came David Clarkson and, finally, Lawrence Shankland. All good players, no doubt, but did they all need to be in the same squad?

So far, Rae’s tried them all with very little success. Indeed, midfielder Tom Walsh has as many league goals (2) as the four of them combined. It’s not hugely surprising. When you have four strikers – who all expect to start – the pressure is on the manager to keep them all happy, which is not likely to allow the strikers to build up a relationship. Where Rae has so far chosen to twist with his options, it’s perhaps time to stick.

When you ally that to the fact it stops St. Mirren playing in a formation potentially more effective, it means that Alex Rae does, after all, have to shoulder a slab of the blame.

This week’s game against Dumbarton – the same side who inflicted defeat on St. Mirren in what turned out to be Ian Murray’s last game – is crucial for Alex Rae and St. Mirren. It’s too early to speak loudly about a relegation battle, but it might not be long before the words ‘top four’ disappear from the lexicon for another year.

Written by Andy Harrow