Stephen Robinson hopes to mark three-year milestone with a win against Rangers

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Stephen Robinson is hoping to mark his three-year anniversary at St Mirren with a win at Ibrox this afternoon. The Northern Irishman took charge of the club three years ago today, having led the club to two successive top-six finishes in that time.

He is now aiming to make it a hat-trick of top-six finishes, with the club currently occupying the final top-half spot. Today’s game against Rangers, with Hearts and Celtic to come in the next seven days, could prove to be vital in the run-in as only 10 points separate fourth and eleventh. “A lot has gone on since then.

It’s gone quickly,” the Saints boss said, reflecting on his time at the club.“We’re sitting in the top six at the moment and we’ve managed to get top six the last two years.“It’s an incredible over-achievement for the club when you consider what we compete against, the resources we’re competing with and some of the issues we’ve had off the park.“It’s testament to these players that, with seven games to go, we’re in a position to make the top six three years in a row.”However, it wasn’t an easy start to life in Paisley with Robbo only picking up one win in his first nine games.But he admits that he had confidence at the time he would turn it around, despite not having the luxuries managers such as Pep Guardiola would have.He said: “I certainly had to look and think, ‘was it the right decision?’“I knew once I got the players I wanted in, we would be better.

I’m very confident in my own coaching ability.“When you get your own players in and see how you can play with them, it’s better.“We all want to play like Pep Guardiola, but you don’t always have £300 million to get the players to do it!“It does take time.