Lukas Fadinger rattled home a penalty eight minutes from time to relieve some pressure on the Swede as the Fir Park side climbed into eighth spot in the Willian Hill Premiership table.

Johansson was adamant his team were well worthy of a result, which brought welcome relief to both him and his players.

He said: “Even more than relief, I felt good, happy, joy, determination. This group has done really well lately and I think it’s very well deserved to get the victory and have at least four points from these last two games.

“It’s important to build on it, the most important thing today is that we didn’t give away easy goals or big chances at all.

“We kept St Mirren so quiet and that means for me the way we were fighting in the second half but also how we did the first 60 minutes, how we were defending even before we made the changes.

“I think we were very solid defensively and we were also pressing well, and we were forcing long balls off them. Defensively there was a lot of solidity and that’s something we definitely need to continue to build on.

“Offensively, we still need to improve how we convert those chances and create even more.

“When St Mirren had a late corner I was thinking ‘if we beep this up again, then I don’t know what’s going to happen, the Sunday off will not be a day off, everyone has to come in and defend corner kicks’.

“I haven’t seen the penalty incident, but referees are human and sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t that’s how it works.”

Saints boss Craig McLeish insists another defeat came down to a lack of belief from his side, who were second best for most of the contest and he believes the penalty call was another bitter blow for St Mirren.

He said: “We’ve not had a good look at the penalty, but the angle from the bench wasn’t great.

“It’s his arm, but it looks like he’s pushed and VAR may have a different angle to the one we have.

“They may not have thought the push was enough, but it’s a frustrating one as we thought we did enough to take a point and we were trying to be tough to break down.

“We need to play with more freedom and maybe there’s a bit of scarring from the recent run we have been on as we didn’t ask enough questions offensively of Motherwell.

“We can’t be relying on clean sheets to pick up points, we need to be a threat, but we will work on that and that is the message, players are getting opportunities and people need to step up.”