Robinson: St Mirren players have great ‘incentive’ to beat Rangers

Stephen Robinson believes his St Mirren players have a great “incentive” to claim another Premiership victory over Rangers in Paisley on Saturday.

The Buddies won 2-0 at Ibrox in February after beating the Light Blues 2-1 at home on Boxing Day and are looking for a third win over Rangers in the same season for the first time since 1979/80.

The Saints boss admitted the pressure was off after his side climbed into the top six for the third-successive campaign with a win over Ross County in the final pre-split fixture, but is keen to finish the season on a high with a bid for a European spot and with a landmark win over the Gers.

The Northern Irishman said: “I said to the players, to do that three times in the season is unheard of. I think it is 45 years since this football club last did that.

“That’s a level of consistency that the players have produced.

“So it’s certainly an incentive and our fans will want that as well.

“And we won’t be we won’t turning up and thinking it’s a holiday. That’s not the way I work.

“We enjoyed our week and it was back to work on Monday again and everyone was made very clear that this is no holiday and everybody that will be involved is fairly focused on winning games for St Mirren.

“The fact that we’ve got the opportunity to make it three wins in a row is a great incentive.

“We shouldn’t beat Rangers at all. On paper you shouldn’t get anywhere near them, but football isn’t played on paper, but it’s a case where we’ll have to be at our very best again.

“We will have to do the simple things really well, but also, can we go and take the game to them, can we go and press them aggressively and high up the pitch and get the crowd right behind us?”

Robinson admitted his relief at not being embroiled in the bottom-six battle to avoid the drop.

The former Motherwell boss said: “The pressure’s off because if you look down at the bottom six, nobody’s safe, that’s real pressure.

“If you lose the first game, then everyone’s looking around. If (bottom side) St Johnstone win their first game, everyone’s looking around. So in terms of that, the pressure is certainly off.

“Relegation is horrible.

“You get lots of job losses, any kind of future plans are knocked on the head because there’s a real lack of income coming into the club.

“I couldn’t be any clearer in my relief, which was probably half my celebrations two weeks ago, but now we can enjoy it, but enjoy it in terms of trying to win every single game.

“But now it is time to finish the season off on a real high and until somebody tells me officially that we can’t get into Europe, then we will certainly be going to try.”