GUS MacPherson has warned St Mirren fans that turning on the team will only accelerate their slide towards Clydesdale Bank Premier League relegation.
The home side left the field to a cacophony of boos after the first half of Saturday's 3-1 St Mirren Park defeat to Motherwell, a result which left them only two points off the foot of the table. However, St Mirren manager MacPherson
insists such
jeers are counter-productive ahead of tonight's crunch clash at Kilmarnock.
"Home or away, it makes no difference, the pressure is always going to be there," MacPherson told club website, www.saintmirren.net.
"I hope we take a healthy support down to Rugby Park because I think that is what is required at the moment – we need the support.
"It would be too easy for me to criticise the supporters but I can't as they have every right to criticise our performances in the last two home games, where we weren't good enough.
"But, at this current juncture, we need our supporters – the players need them.
"Yes, as a group, we were poor on Saturday but we now have to show the support what we are capable of doing again. We need everybody to get right behind the team because, if we do that, the players will respond to it.
"Likewise, if it becomes an unpleasant situation, the players more likely than not will go into their shells, which none of us can afford. We need our players to be brave, strong and to perform the way that we all know that they can."
MacPherson insists he was as frustrated as any fans with Saturday's display, which continued a run that has seen St Mirren win just one league game in 2009.
"Once again, Saturday's game was extremely disappointing," said MacPherson, whose injury woes worsened this week with the news striker Jim Hamilton and defender Jack Ross are both likely to miss the remainder of the season.
"We have said it so often, goals change games and I think the loss of the first goal was vital as you could see the confidence drain from the players. I'm sure the manner in which we lost it in didn't help either.
"After that, we were chasing the game and playing nowhere near as controlled as we should have been and, credit to Motherwell, they picked us off.
"But we can't get away from the fact that we have just played two home games in a row where the performances have been poor. We have been saying for some time that here at the new stadium we have a good atmosphere and good performances but we have ended up frustrated as we haven't won the games – I don't think we can make that claim about the last two games as we didn't deserve anything."
