The Ginger Reaction: Blackburn

What can Gordon Strachan possibly say to make up for having to watch the last two miserable Saints performances. Will he say that he's sold Kevin Davies, or that Paul Jones has been hypnotised into being able to take a cross comfortably. Nope, but he did try this: "We're disappointed," Strachan said. "We've not played well in the last few games and we know that. We showed some nice touches, but the Premiership isn't about being nice.

"It's about positive and our performances in both 18-yard boxes could have been better, whereas theirs couldn't have been better. We had a couple of chances before they scored, but it's about taking your opportunities, which we didn't do. I thought one or two players looked tired. It was the third in five games for some of them. The performance did look a bit that way.

"I'm as confident as I was six games ago. I'm confident that our performances will get better and what will be will be."

Gordon added: "We are not mathematically safe and my players are fully aware of this. There is a fair portion of the season left and the teams below us are scrapping for every point.

''We have to be prepared for it to go right down to the wire.''

Gordon was much more optimistic to the official website saying: "I was confident six games ago. I am confident performances will get better in the next few games. We are confident we can get back to winning ways so that we can feel better about ourselves in the summer. For three or four months we did very well but we are not happy with ourselves in the last three or four games. We are very disappointed as a squad that we have not played well in our last couple of games. We know that."