GARY Teale today admitted he has been boring his loved ones this season because he keeps going over the same ground after each St Mirren defeat.

The Paisley side suffered their eighth Premiership loss of the season on Saturday when they fell 3-0 against top-of-the-table Dundee United.

Teale played an hour of that match - watching from the sidelines as former Rangers youngster Charlie Telfer added to earlier goals from Paul Paton and Nadir Ciftci.

St Mirren spurned a number of scoring chances during the match, though, and winger Teale bemoaned his team's bad luck this term.

He said: "It's obviously the way we are going at the minute, never mind performances, but also injuries and things like that.

"We had John McGinn pulling out in midweek there, so right now everything seems to be going against us.

"But we know that luck can change very quickly so we won't feel sorry for ourselves. We know that there was not a lot in the game [on Saturday].

"It was a sucker punch to fall behind and it came down to our own mistakes. Until we eradicate that then we are going to be up against it week in and week out.

"You do seem like a broken record when you speak to family and friends who are encouraging you all the time.

"You don't start to doubt yourself but you are thinking 'here we go again'. I don't think we're a million miles away, but the individual errors are killing us right now."

An assistant coach as well as a senior first-team player, Teale is responsible for keeping morale up as his side sit just three points off bottom place in the table.

But the 36-year-old has revealed that the St Mirren squad has not been left down in the dumps by their sorry form.

He said: "It is human nature and that might suggest that the confidence will go down, but we can only judge the players by what we say in training Monday to Friday.

"Every week we are getting everything we could ask of them and we are impressed with the tempo they produce in training.

"I've been places before where you go through bad runs of form and people start hiding but the young boys here just come in and seem to start again. It's a results-based business but, as coaches, what we see in training every day is excellent. We just need that wee rub of the green."

A consortium of businessmen from Holland and Kuwait are also reported to be in talks to buy St Mirren.

Chairman Stewart Gilmour has been trying to offload the club for almost five years and a deal could be struck this week.

But St Mirren manager Tommy Craig dismissed such speculation, preferring instead to focus on improving results on the pitch.

He added: "Somebody mentioned the takeover story to me before the game, but I don't know anything about it. Quite frankly, I don't want to as my main focus is getting this team to pick up points.

"In the second half, very early on, we are clean through on goal with Adam Drury and we don't finish. Then they go up the park and score. It was a double kick in the teeth."