ST MIRREN scored six goals against Ayr United, have played some terrific football of late and yet remain bottom of the Championship with time ticking.

However, the feeling of optimism and hope in the streets of Paisley after their team’s superb 6-2 win over Ayr United, who remain a place ahead of them in the league, was real enough. They now believe a season which seemed certain to end in relegation might be saved.

Six goals, six different goalscorers, great football and confidence surging throughout the team at the Paisley 2021 stadium from a team who have spent all these months looking up at every other team made at least this observer think one thing.

Why are St Mirren not at the very least a mid-table side?

Ayr United are part-time and as their manager Ian McCall explained after the match, almost half his team had been unable to train all week for a number of reasons, which rather explained why they began the game so slowing and were four goals down before they realised what was going on.

St Mirren are one of the bigger clubs in that division and in players such as Stevie Mallon, who was superb at the weekend, who could easily play Premiership so why has this campaign been such a struggle?

“We are where we are but I do believe we’re on our way up,” said Mallan. “We have been showing some good form, as have the teams around us which is a kick in the teeth, but the manager came in and had a clear-out at Christmas and brought in the boys he wanted to and that made a really big change at the club.

“It’s what we needed. We are enjoying it but still stuck at the bottom of the league. Next week is an even bigger game as we try to get above Ayr.

“Saturday was our most important game of the season so the result was huge for us. We can now relax a bit because it’s been a nervous week. The way we out and performed was brilliant.

“We all knew how important this game was and that we needed to win it. We didn’t want to be going in 0-0 at half-time, so be 4-0 up was a dream come true.”

It was a good week for Mallan. He made his debut for the Scotland under-21s along with team-mate Lewis Morgan who sadly suffered a potentially serious injury late on in the game.

“It would be a real blow to lose Lewis as he’s the only natural winger we have, so let’s hope it’s only a scare,” said Mallan. Indeed.

Jack Ross, the manager, has done a good job since taking over even if it did take time for okay performances to become goods ones, and for narrow defeats and draws turn into better results.

He’s got good players. That’s the odd thing. They are a point behind Ayr with a game in hand, at Cappielow of all places, and for the first time this season what happens next is in the hands of a group of players who are much better than they have shown

“I sense when Stevie and Lewis came back from Scotland duty that they had another spring in their step, that they felt good about themselves and have done over the last few months,” said Ross.

“They played well for Scotland and when they came in on Thursday both wanted to train because of how they were feeling and that reflected in their performance.

“We were ruthless on Saturday. When we got opportunities then by and large we took them. We picked a bold team, from middle to front there were a lot of attack-minded players and they were great.

“Hopefully the supporters enjoyed it because that is one of the reasons we are here. Yes, we want to stay in this league but we do try and put a team out there the people will enjoy watching and I think we’ve done that over the last few months.”

As for Ayr, at least in McCall they have something of an expert at this level which gives them more of than have a chance.