'The message is clear - it's time to get ugly'

At its best, football is a fine wine. At its worst, it's the gin I made in my bath that one Christmas that "ruined the holidays for everyone".

Games have started to drift towards the latter in the past month of St Mirren. Inclement Scottish winter, an excess of tactically similar neutralising teams and an outbreak of main character syndrome among the country's officials have contributed to a series of dour spectacles.

The 0-0 draw with Ross County, the 2-0 defeat to Dundee United, and most recently Saturday's 1-0 loss to Motherwell – these aren't just results, they're a diagnostic report on our current footballing malaise.

Take the weekend's defeat to Motherwell; Tony Watt's 94th-minute headed winner a vindictive full stop on a grammatical error of a football match.

The game was turgid and attritional. It was bad. Made worse by referee Dan McFarlane switching between overly officious prefect and a bird that thinks it is night when you put a sheet over its cage.

As the Motherwell celebrations filled the SMISA, one fundamental truth became inescapable: good teams find ways to win these games. Sometimes football is about industrial persistence, about being more streetwise than your opponent, about understanding that beauty is occasionally found in pure, unadulterated pragmatism.

Right now, St Mirren are drinking 15% hazy craft IPAs out of a cracked Tennent's glass. We're overthinking when we should be overwhelming, analysing when we should be action taking. Games like these are so often won in moments of stubborn determination.

Motherwell knew this. They played a canny game, understanding precisely what was required. They were trying to win a football match with the tools available to them - however blunt they may be. And win it they did.

For St Mirren, the message is clear: it's time to get ugly. Not metaphorically - literally. We need to develop a tactical personality that can turn these cold, grey, sodden Scottish afternoons into points on the board. Less philosophy, more function. Less contemplation, more confrontation.

No points for style. In football, only the result matters.

Andrew Christie can be found at Misery Hunters