St Mirren players behind Tommy Craig, says Thomas Reilly

By David CurrieReporting Scotland presenter
St Mirren manager Tommy Craig
Tommy Craig is under pressure after a poor start to his first season in charge

St Mirren forward Thomas Reilly says the players - not manager Tommy Craig - are to blame for the club's poor performances this season.

Some fans barracked the manager after Saturday's 3-0 defeat by Hamilton Academical, but Reilly has urged them to rally round the team.

"We're 110% behind him and he's behind us," Reilly told BBC Scotland.

"We're the ones on the pitch putting in the bad performances, he's not, but we know the results will come."

St Mirren forward Thomas Reilly
"We've got Thommo coming back, which is brilliant for everyone and it'll give the boys a lift,"

Craig had stepped up from his assistant role after Danny Lennon was dismissed in the summer, but the 64-year-old's side sit second bottom of the Scottish Premiership, ahead of Ross County only on goal difference.

Ahead of Wednesday evening's annual meeting, some fans talked on social media about a boycott of games, but Reilly thought this would be counter-productive.

"I don't see there's any point boycotting the match and the team," he said. "It's not going to help us.

"Why would you boycott a game if you're a fan of the team? But the majority of the fans have got behind the team.

"His enthusiasm and how hard Tommy works, we live off that. We're going to work just as hard and hopefully we can get the results.

"We're the ones not scoring goals, we're the ones conceding goals, so ultimately it's up to us to put on the performance we owe to the fans and to Tommy."

St Mirren host in-form Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup on Saturday and Reilly is hopeful that the likely return of 36-year-old striker Steven Thompson - missing since August through injury - will prove crucial.

St Mirren forward Thomas Reilly
Thomas Reilly has yet to score in 11 appearances this season

"We've got Thommo coming back, which is brilliant for everyone and it'll give the boys a lift," he said.

"We're just not scoring enough goals. It's as simple as that."

However, Reilly stressed that they could not simply rely on the veteran talisman to turn their season around and pointed out that midfielders John McGinn and Isaac Osborne were also close to a return from injury.

"I think everybody thinks he's going to come back and save the day with a hat-trick or something, but it's never going to be as easy as that," he said.

"But you see every day in training, he'll get the goals that I've not scored this season.

"We feel that, if we get this win on Saturday against a very hard Inverness team, we know we can beat them it can kick start our season and we can kick on from there."