St Mirren v Motherwell: ‘Everyone is hurting’

Jim Goodwin insists St Mirren are ready to resurrect their season after holding “clear-the-air” talks after their poor start.
Jim Goodwin: Everyone is hurting. Picture: SNSJim Goodwin: Everyone is hurting. Picture: SNS
Jim Goodwin: Everyone is hurting. Picture: SNS

The Paisley club have yet to record a win this term and head into the weekend action second bottom of the Scottish Premiership.

They suffered a home defeat to newly-promoted Partick Thistle in their last outing and Goodwin believes the international break was a timely opportunity to address their problems ahead of the visit of Motherwell.

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The Saints skipper said: “I think the break came at the right time for us to be honest. We were on a really poor run and it’s given us a week or two to have a couple of team meetings, a few clear-the-air meetings, to get a few things out in the open and just start again.

“The season starts for us against Motherwell. We have been very disappointed up until now and we have worked really hard on the training ground over the last couple of weeks. Hopefully it will all come to fruition on Saturday.”

Asked what has gone wrong for the Buddies so far, Goodwin added: “We’ve got our opinions but it’s very hard to put your finger on exactly what is going wrong.

“It’s certainly not through lack of effort or commitment from the players. I can vouch for that, that’s for sure.

“When you look around the dressing room and see the quality that we’ve got, our first 11, and our whole squad really, is as good, if not stronger, than other squads out there.

“Every one of us is hurting, we are all proud lads and we realise what’s happening on the park just now isn’t acceptable and hope we can put it right.”

Poor results have put pressure on manager Danny Lennon and speculation over his position at the Paisley club.

Goodwin said: “I think it’s really, really early to be throwing those kind of statements out there. I can understand the supporters’ frustration.

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“We won a cup last year and I think the whole level of expectation rises and people expect us to kick on in the league.”

Despite their opponents’ recent woes, Stuart McCall is expecting a tough game against a side who are unbeaten in five games against his Motherwell team.

St Mirren have the players capable of it and one good performance and they will be up and running. Obviously we hope it’s not against ourselves.

“We have always had really good games against them, tight games.”