St Mirren kept their European qualification hopes alive with a comfortable 2-0 win over Dundee United at Tannadice.

Mikael Mandron opened the scoring for the Buddies in the first half, with Jonah Ayunga sealing the win after the break.

The victory moves St Mirren to within two points of United, who currently sit in fifth in the Premiership table – the last European spot – with just two games of the season remaining.

The hosts made two changes to the side which lost at Hibernian last week, with Kristijan Trapanovski and Glenn Middleton coming in for Jort van der Sande and David Babunski.

The Buddies also made two alterations to the team which beat Aberdeen last Saturday, with Roland Idowu and Caolan Boyd-Munce replacing Oisin Smyth and the injured Mark O’Hara.

The visitors were the first to threaten in the seventh minute when Mandron sent a 25-yard curler just past home goalkeeper Jack Walton’s right-hand post.

United carved out an opening of their own when Will Ferry found skipper Ross Docherty inside the St Mirren box, but the midfielder’s shot was saved by St Mirren keeper Zach Hemming.

The hosts then passed up the best opportunity of the match so far in the 15th minute when Middleton found Sam Dalby with a pinpoint cross from the left, however, the striker headed over with the goal at his mercy.

The pendulum swung St Mirren’s way again with Richard Taylor heading over before Walton had to make a superb save to keep out an Ayunga shot.

However, the home keeper could not prevent Stephen Robinson’s side from taking the lead in the 31st minute. Ryan Alebiosu teed up Mandron at the edge of the United box and this time, the striker’s low shot nestled in the bottom corner of Walton’s net.

Three minutes after the restart, the hosts had another great opportunity when Docherty threaded the ball through to Dalby but the striker’s shot missed the target.

Dalby threatened again shortly after when he got his head to a Ferry free-kick, however, Hemming pulled off an acrobatic save to deny the front man.

United were definitely on the front foot now with Middleton sending a snapshot flying just wide.

St Mirren finally produced an opportunity of their own, but Alebiosu’s low shot was superbly saved by the diving Walton.

However, the home keeper was picking the ball out of his net in the 66th minute when Idowu found Ayunga, who beat home defender Emmanuel Adegboyega before calmly slotting low past Walton to put the Buddies back in the driving seat.

St Mirren should have made it three in the 78th minute, but Killian Phillips blasted over.

What the managers said…

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson: “I thought the performance was outstanding and it should have been more.

“All we’ve said is we’ll try to continue to win football matches and see where it takes us.

“We just need to keep performing. The pleasing aspect for me is we deserved it, the performance was very, very good and some of the football was outstanding, so we’ll just keep doing that and see where it takes us.

“That’s the highest points tally, I think, in modern history for St Mirren. It’s better than last year, so we keep doing that and we keep growing and see where it takes us.”

Dundee United manager Jim Goodwin: “It looked as if St Mirren had a bit more energy and a bit more freshness. I think this season has caught up with one or two of us.

“I don’t want to take anything away from St Mirren because they thoroughly deserved the win today.

“Without making excuses, we’ve got too many players just not at 100 per cent playing through injuries. I think that’s been glaringly obvious in the last couple of fixtures.

“We’ve got two massive games to come. Obviously, there’s not a great deal of time to recover. We know how difficult the task is going to be midweek and next Saturday against a very good Aberdeen team.”

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