Stephen Robinson has admitted St Mirren were always going to be in for a long night after conceding in the first minute against Celtic.
A nightmare start for the hosts - as Daizen Maeda fired home within 60 seconds - was worsened as Matt O'Riley doubled on six minutes before Toyosi Olusanya was sent off in the final seconds of the first half.
For Robinson, the match was all but over before the red card call - after a VAR check - due to the shocking start.
"We didn't make life easy for ourselves," said Robinson on Sky Sports. "It was a long night. We knew they would come out bright which they done.
"We started poorly and it was compounded by the red card.If you are going to give yourself an uphill task like that against a team of Celtic's quality then you don't have any chance of winning the game."
"They were controllable as well as there was some good quality involved in it which is frustrating," said Robinson of the goals conceded. "Then, obviously the red card takes the game away but we didn't lose the game because of the red card, we lost the game because of our start."
READ MORE: St Mirren 0 Celtic 3: Instant reaction to the burning issues
The St Mirren boss admitted he was understanding of the involvement of VAR in the red card for Olusanya but has sympathy with his player over the nature of the challenge as he caught Joe Hart with an outstretched leg while attempting to score in the Celtic six-yard box.
"Yeah," said Robinson when asked if he could understand the reasoning for the yellow card being upgraded to a red after a VAR review. "But I'm not sure what he is meant to do...is he meant to pull out, is he meant to not try and score?
"I've not seen it back on TV but when somebody ducks their head for a challenge I don't know if it's classed as dangerous play.
"Obviously, if he catches him then it is dangerous play.
"But that's not the reason we lost the game so it doesn't really matter either way."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel