IN season 2000/01 the Scottish Premier League was extended to 12 teams.

It was also the year the contentious split was introduced, the division breaking into two mini-leagues of six for the last five games of the season. Only one team emerged from the inaugural post-split fixture card without a defeat to their name; newly-promoted St Mirren. It mattered little. They were still relegated immediately back to the first division by a five-point margin.

The history books, then, offer little solace for the Paisley club as they look to embark on another late season rescue mission. Avoiding relegation by the skin of their teeth has been their default setting since winning promotion back to the Premier League in 2006 but when you play Russian roulette with your top-division status year after year then the law of averages suggests that eventually you end up taking the bullet.

It would take the mother of all great escapes for St Mirren to avoid the drop this time around. Unfortunately for Gary Teale and his players it is already out of their own hands. Seven points adrift of Motherwell who they meet at Fir Park this evening and once more after the split, even if St Mirren were to win their remaining seven matches they could still be relegated should Motherwell win their other five games. Both scenarios are, of course, unlikely but it demonstrates the size of the uphill challenge now facing the bottom side.

Statistics alone are not the reason for the pervading and persistent pessimism over Paisley. After all, were St Mirren to defeat Motherwell tonight and Ross County on Monday, and those two sides were to lose their other match before the split, then the gap between bottom and second bottom would only be a point, with County just a further three ahead. That would give St Mirren a real lifeline going into the final five matches.

The problem, however, is that they have offered little sign that they are capable of executing such a comeback. They have won once at home in the league all season, against a Hamilton Academical side in the midst of a wretched run of form. They have lost their last three matches without scoring a goal. Their top scorer, following Kenny McLean's transfer to Aberdeen in January, has two goals. They have kept just two clean sheets all season. Aside from a tenacious first-half display against Celtic on Friday night, there have been precious few positives to grasp at as an indicator that perhaps it will all come good. Little wonder that the mood among many St Mirren supporters has switched from blind optimism to meek acceptance of their fate.

The ramifications of relegation will be huge. A club already run by a skeleton staff will likely face further cutbacks. Players out of contract will move on, with those with longer deals facing a

wage cut. A budget already stretched to its limit will be reduced again. With one or both of Rangers and Hibernian to face in the Championship next season, promotion will be far from guaranteed.

The post-mortem will begin as soon as relegation is confirmed. It will likely centre on a number of decisions that proved detrimental to St Mirren's long-term health. Appointing Tommy Craig as manager will be the most significant one. It was an experiment that simply did not work. The majority of the players he signed last summer have also fallen short of the levels expected of them. Taking almost two months to confirm Gary Teale would continue as manager until the summer also did not help continuity. Failing to adequately prepare for the possibility that 36 year-old striker Steven Thompson may not stay fit all season was another black mark, as was selling McLean on the final day of the January transfer window for a fee far below his worth.

Teale is matter-of-fact about that latter point, but it undoubtedly greatly hindered his chances of keeping St Mirren in the division. "As a manager you want to keep your best players but then someone came in and offered money that they [the directors] felt Kenny could go for," he said. "I don't know if there was a clause in there or not. But as a manager it doesn't make your job any easier as he was one of our shining lights. I was more or less just told Kenny was going - I think that's the case with most managers."

The ongoing saga that is the sale of the club has clearly not helped. Talks with an English group and an Argentinian consortium both reached an advanced stage this season but couldn't get over the line. Since the turn of the year, there has been almost nothing heard publically from chairman Stewart Gilmour or his directors, leaving Teale to face the music.

"I still speak to the board and they just tell me to get on with the job," he added. "It's not really my concern if the chairman wants to speak [publically] or not. When you're the manager it's usually you who takes any stick that comes along. I'll accept that."