St Mirren manager Gus MacPherson admits his players were simply not good enough to take anything from their Clydesdale Bank Premier League clash with Hamilton.

Saints had netted 11 goals in their last four matches but could not find the back of the net against Accies, who claimed a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Marco Paixao and Martin Canning.

"We have had a lot of plaudits in recent weeks with the performances and results," said MacPherson. "But if you start in that manner and you give a team the encouragement and a goal in that manner, it's going to be a tough afternoon and that's the way it panned out."

He added: "We got nowhere near the standards we have set in recent weeks and that's disappointing.

"We don't need a reality check - we know what our strengths are and today we have shown what our weaknesses are.

"We have to get back to what we know we are capable of doing. When the standards drop you should be hurting and there are a lot of players in there who are hurting."

A mounting injury list no doubt played a part, with MacPherson naming just six substitutes on the bench and admitting he is running out of options.

"It's a problem," he said. "We've got a small squad but we've just got to deal with it.

"When you get injuries, you run out of options and that's the difficult thing. The players who were there today were the players who were fit, there were no other players."