St Mirren boss Goodwin: 'Things could be so different'

Jim Goodwin will take his St Mirren side into Saturday’s cinch Premiership match against Hibernian at Easter Road “slightly frustrated” by recent costly decisions.

The Buddies have had a goal ruled out in each of their last three games, the 6-0 defeat by Celtic at Parkhead and the goalless draws against St Johnstone and Dundee United in Paisley – and the Saints boss believes they all should have stood.

St Mirren, looking for their first league win of the season, sit in 10th place with three points from five fixtures but the Irishman believes those stats would be a whole lot healthier if Saints had not been on the wrong end of recent goal decisions.

“Things could be so different,” said Goodwin, who revealed Greg Kiltie will be out for four to six weeks following keyhole surgery on his knee.

“I am pretty sure every manager out there would say they should have a few more points on the board. I believe we certainly should have.

“The frustration for me is that we have had the ball in the back of the net in each of the last three games and all of them have been disallowed for one reason or the other.

“People talk about the lack of goals, we have scored genuine goals. The one Curtis Main scored at Parkhead was two yards onside.

“I am not saying it would have had any impact on the result but it could have Curtis up and running in the league.

“Eamonn Brophy scored a legitimate goal at the weekend in my opinion.

“Main doesn’t do a whole lot wrong at the back post in terms of the grappling with (Scott) McMann and that goal should stand.

“And an offside goal against St Johnstone that wasn’t offside so unfortunately we are going into this game on the back of two 0-0 results.

“I am not blaming officials, I am not wanting to get into any controversy with anyone, I am just stating the facts.

“The goals against St Johnstone and Dundee United should have stood and theoretically we should have won the last two games 1-0 and be sitting on seven points, seventh in the table and everything is looking a lot healthier and rosier.”

Discussing his squad for the trip to Leith, Goodwin said: “Greg had a little bit of keyhole surgery on a knee to tidy that up.

“He will probably be, from now, (out for) four to six weeks and Charles Dunne a couple of weeks.

“He had a slight hamstring tear in the week leading up to the international break.

“We have a couple of players back from suspension in Ethan Erhahon and Alan Power so the squad is a lot stronger going into this game than it was last week.”