Brian Kerr urges St Mirren to build on Aberdeen victory against St Johnstone

Assistant manager Brian Kerr stressed the importance of building on last week’s much-welcomed win at Aberdeen when St Mirren host bottom club St Johnstone on Saturday.

The Buddies’ 3-0 Premiership victory over the struggling Dons was their first league win in five games and left Stephen Robinson’s side in seventh place, behind Hibernian on goal difference.

“It is never easy but what we’ve got to do is make sure that we capitalise on it,” said Kerr, who revealed Saints hope to have a couple of new faces in before the transfer window closes.

“We’ve got to make sure we continue that, there’s no point in winning one and then the following week losing again, because the league’s so tight.

“So it’s important that we try and pick up a little bit of a run of results, and not just the isolated one.

“Any team that has gone on a bit of a run has found themselves going from a certain position in the league to somewhere that looks safe.

“And vice versa, you can easily go on a little run and find yourself one minute in the top six, and then you’re in the bottom six.

“So it’s very, very tight. What we need to do is make sure we capitalise on last week’s very good performance and very good result.”

St Johnstone won their first league game in 10 last weekend – a 2-1 victory over Motherwell following a Scottish Gas Scottish Cup win over the Steelmen.

Simo Valakari’s side are on 18 points, seven behind second-bottom Kilmarnock but only nine behind eighth-placed Dundee.

Kerr said: “The way they play the game has been excellent. You can see a clear identity in the way Simo wants to play.

“They’ve had a lot of plaudits in the way they want to play, and two brilliant results for them.

“They will certainly be another team that’s looking to pick up and two victories for them puts them on the coattails of a number of teams.

“So we need to make sure we go and treat this game the same way as we treat any game and make sure that we’re ready for what they’re going to throw at us.”

Asked if Saints fans could expect any additions to the squad before deadline day, Kerr said: “Well, we are certainly working hard on it. What we do know is we’ve got a very good squad here, and we’ve got good numbers here.

“We’ll try to bring in quality rather than quantity.

“So that’s what is maybe making things a wee bit slower than we’d like.

“But we’d like to think that there will be another couple added by the time the window shuts, but we’ll just have to wait and see how that moves in the next few days.”