Stephen Robinson urges St Mirren to have ‘faith over fear’ ahead of Premier Sports Cup final against Celtic

Stephen Robinson revealed “faith over fear” is St Mirren’s mantra as they prepare for the Premier Sports Cup final against Celtic at Hampden Park on Sunday.

Saints face a Hoops side under new boss Wilfried Nancy who have won the two William Hill Premiership meetings between the clubs this season, with the only goal of the game scored late on both occasions.

After three straight defeats, St Mirren have recovered form with a draw away at Aberdeen and a home win over Dundee United, which has buoyed the Buddies boss as he looks to bring a trophy to Paisley for the first time since 2013 when Saints beat Hearts 3-2 in the League Cup final.

“The fans put up on all the banners, faith over fear,” said the Northern Irishman, who believes the game may have come too soon for captain Mark O’Hara, while Dutch midfielder Malik Dijksteel is a doubt.

“Really believe in what we can do. We’ve earned the right to be here.

“We’ve had some very, very tough games, Hearts and Kilmarnock. We started the competition way, way back, it feels like about five years ago now, but such a long time ago, so we’ve earned that right.

“What I have iterated to them is you have to have faith and the how do you have faith?

“Show them what they’ve done. And we’ve constantly spoken about ourselves, we’ve constantly shown how we’ve created problems for Celtic.

“There will be a nervous energy, of course. We aren’t Celtic who get to every cup final or every other cup final.

“So we have to embrace the day, enjoy the day, but most of all, have faith over fear, really believe in the system, in each other, the staff and the stuff we’ve put on in preparation.

“We know they believe in that. We’ve got results in the last couple of weeks, that gives us the faith that we’re back on track again.

“So we go into the game full of hope, full of anticipation and, as I say, the faith that we can achieve a result.”

O’Hara is on the way back from a foot problem that has kept him out since the 4-1 semi-final win against Motherwell at the start of November.

Robinson said: “Mark (O’Hara) has trained. We were waiting last week to see the reaction of the second injection and that looks like it’s helped.

“We’ll see his reaction to training today, but he has been out six weeks. So it may just be a game too soon.

“It would be a huge call for me to start Mark after six weeks out and three days training.

“We would love him to be 100 per cent fit to be involved in some way for the final.

“But I also have to take other players into consideration as well and, if he’s right and I feel he can make an impact on the game, then we will involve him. If not, we won’t.

“Malik Dijksteel pulled up with an injury today so is a wee bit of a doubt.

“Liam Donnelly’s came through again. Shamal George had a sickness bug but he trained today. So, other than Mark and Malik, we’re probably at full strength.”