St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson has told his players to “embrace the pressure” that will follow their success of last season.
The Buddies secured a top-six finish in the Scottish Premiership and are playing in European competition for the first time in 37 years.
They start the new season at home to Hibernian on August 4, three days after their Europa Conference League second qualifying round second leg tie with Icelandic club Valur.
Robinson, who has been in charge in Paisley since 2022, is relishing the added expectation on him and his players.
St Mirren were a club that went up and down before, now we’ve got stability in the Premiership where we’ve been top six for the last two years and now into Europe,” he told Sky Sports News.
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Shaun Rooney says he jumped at the chance to play for St Mirren after previously rejecting an offer from the club, when he chose to play under then Fleetwood boss Scott Brown
“Expectation raises rightly so, that’s fans! Expectations rise based on success so it would mean that we’ve had a couple of really successful seasons and it’s up to us to replicate that.
“We have to embrace the pressure. We have to embrace that there will be periods of time when it doesn’t go quite so well but you don’t go off what you’re doing.
“You might have to tweak certain things, but you still stick with your beliefs and your belief in the squad of players and the football club.”
Jaden Brown has returned to St Mirren on a permanent deal
Robinson has made six new signings so far this summer, with James Scott and Jaden Brown also making their loan moves permanent.
“I’m pleased. I believe we’ve doubled up in every position and we’ve got a 20, 21 man squad we believe can be really competitive and can be better than last season again,” the former Motherwell boss added.
“We’ve incorporated younger players into that as well so I believe we’ve got a really good mix of young and experienced that perhaps we were missing a little bit last year.”
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