Jak Alnwick insists there is no bad blood between St Mirren and Motherwell

Jak Alnwick insists there is no hard feelings towards Motherwell despite seeing the Steelmen benefit from St Mirren’s coronavirus misfortune.

Stephen Robinson’s team were the big winners from last week’s Scottish Professional Football League disciplinary ruling that saw them pick up six points after Saints and Kilmarnock were both punished for breaching coronavirus safeguards.

The Buddies, on the other hand, were penalised with two 3-0 forfeits and a suspended £40,000 fine after an outbreak amongst Jim Goodwin’s squad forced October clashes with Well and Hamilton to be axed.

The Paisley club – who have lodged an appeal with Hampden bosses – have the chance to claim three of those points back this weekend when they travel to Fir Park.

But goalkeeper Alnwick does not believe it will be an extra spicy affair.

The former Rangers stopper said: “There’s no bitterness towards Motherwell. They’ve obviously prepared for a game that was then called off.

“But I don’t think they will have been thinking they should have got the points.

“It’s down to the SPFL. It’s happened to Kilmarnock as well so Motherwell have picked up six points, which helps them.

“But there’s no bitterness this weekend. We want to win the game of football as we would have done in any case. There’s no extra hatred.

“It’s how football is at the minute. I even look at teams down south like Newcastle United. They are one of the biggest teams in the Premier League and they have had to call a game off. What the outcome of that will be I don’t know.

“But it’s the new normal at the minute and we just have to get used to it.”

Saints are on an eight-game unbeaten run in all competitions but now find themselves bottom of the table after relegation rivals Hamilton also picked up a walkover win.

And while Alnwick is not pointing the finger of blame at either Brian Rice’s Accies or Motherwell, he does believe Saints can use the burning sense of injustice to fuel their survival bid.

He said: “That is one thing we can look at. It’s not nice that we’ve lost out on six points against two teams who are right around us.

“It’s difficult to take but you’ve just got to use that as motivation to move forward with.

“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves and end up losing two, three, four games because we’ve been moping about. If you do that you will end up in trouble.

“But we’ve had a good reaction to it, picked up some good results against Aberdeen who are arguably the third best team in the division.”