Stephen Robinson see similarity between high-flying St Mirren and his successful Motherwell team

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson says the mentality in his current team is similar to his high-flying Motherwell side.

During Robinson’s time in charge at Fir Park he led the team to two cup finals, and later masterminded a third placed finish in the Premiership.

With St Mirren currently sitting behind Celtic and Rangers in the league table after a strong start, fans are asking just how good a season they might enjoy, and the manager believes he has a squad who go about their work in a way that will help them gain success.

“When I was at Motherwell we managed to finish third and got to some cup finals,” Robinson told STV. “We managed to bring good boys in, first and foremost, as well as being very good players.

“We’ve managed to do that again here.

“I’ve been in dressing rooms as a player and a manager where it’s not like that. It’s rare where every player you get on with and they accept decisions and not playing at times but work even harder.

“We have to embrace that and seeing the boys doing well gives us a real buzz and reward because they put so much effort into every single day.”

St Mirren bounced back from a heavy defeat to Dundee before the international break with a 1-0 victory at home to Livingston on Saturday. The team now travel to face Ross County on Tuesday night with the busy schedule helping to keep minds on the task at hand without looking too far ahead.

“They’re so focused on the next game,” he said. “We didn’t get too down about losing 4-0 to Dundee.

“We looked at it and analysed it and how to make it better. But we probably analyse the win more than the loss because there’s things that we can do better and look to improve by small percentages in every game.

“It’s easy because they want to get better every day. They are a group of boys that come in to train hard and make themselves better.

“It makes my job very easy.”

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Stephen Robinson aiming for long Scottish cup run with St Mirren

Robinson is making his preparations knowing he will be without Richard Taylor after the defender was stretchered off with an ankle injury at the weekend. The manager revealed that the injury doesn’t look as bad as first feared but that the midweek game will come too early. Ryan Strain is to see a specialist over his groin injury and will also miss out, though his Australia teammate Keanu Baccus returns from suspension.

County are under new management with Derek Adams back in the dugout in Dingwall but Robinson doesn’t expect drastic changes to the opposition on Tuesday.

“It’s hard to judge at this stage,” he said. “Obviously they can’t sign any new players so it’s similar personnel that we’ve played against and are used to.

“We’ll go up there and concentrate on our game. We need to make sure that we have got the right mentality. It’s a trip that we can feel that we can get something out of and it keeps us in a good position.

“We have to take one game as it comes. It’s a tough game for us and make no mistake, Ross County have got some talented players, some of them I’ve worked with before.

“They bring a threat. They’ve got some really creative players in their team but we have to go up there, play our game and be very confident in what we do.

“If we do that to the best of our abilities then we’ll be okay.”