Well thump sorry Saints

McGhee at St Mirren Park
By grabar
May 10 2009

Motherwell secured SPL football for another season with a 3-1 win over St. Mirren while at the same time adding to the worries of their hosts.

There were a number of eyebrows raised when the team sheets were handed out at St Mirren Park and Maros Klimpl and John Sutton were missing from the Well line up. This meant there five attacking players in the 4-3-3 formation.

In the end this worked against a nervous Saint Mirren side who never really posed much of a threat after Graeme Smith had blocked from Andy Dorman early on.

Well opened the scoring with a rare Jamie Murphy header in 19 minutes, and the youngster had been given all the room in the world to pick his spot to head in Hammell's cross.

When Clarkson made it two nil with a tap in following Hughes effort hitting the post there was a feeling round the ground that even with only 31 minutes gone the game was effectively over.

This was further confirmed 15 minutes after the break when Howard fumbled Clarkson's header over the line to make it three nil.

Saints did rally and Stephen O'Donnell's spectacular volley did give them some hope in the final twenty minutes but they couldn't find any composure to dent the Well defence.

Motherwell boss Mark McGhee said after the game, "We tried to be positive and use the ball really well - we scored three goals and had numerous other chances, and we could have scored more.

"The pitch helped us as the passing was good; we tried to play as many attacking players as we could and had Stephen Hughes, Jim O'Brien, Jamie Murphy, Cillian Sheridan and David Clarkson all in the team, and it's worked for us.

"It will be difficult to be as slick as we were today on the surface at Fir Park, because your second touch there is usually on your chin!

"We'll remain positive and we have to be honest in our performance - I can't start being experimental and I'm not going to start throwing in three or four youngsters just for the sake of it."