Eamonn Brophy believes his Buddies can dare to dream about clinching European football next season.
That’s because the St Mirren striker feels his side already have the quality to make it happen – as long as they find more consistency on the park.
Brophy and his teammates have had to watch on with envy as Premiership rivals Dundee United and Motherwell, who pipped them to the top six, sealed spots in the Europa Conference League after the split.
While the Scotland international admits they deserve their adventures on the continent, he insists the Saints aren’t a million miles away from following in their jetstreams next year.
Brophy told Express Sport: “If you take Celtic, Rangers and Hearts out of the equation then there’s honestly nothing between the teams.
“Aberdeen and Hibs, we’ve shown we can certainly compete with them.
“We think we beat anybody and you can see that with how tight the league has been.
“It could have been us in fourth place, but it’s one of those things.
“The other teams have been more consistent, some had better starts to the season than we did.
“The league table never lies and at the end of the day they deserve to be there.
“We know we’re capable of being there next time around but we just need to be more consistent next season. I’m sure we will be.”
Brophy was a second-half sub at Pittodrie on Sunday, helping the Paisley club end the season with a fourth successive clean sheet after a goalless draw with ex-Buddies gaffer Jim Goodwin’s Aberdeen.
The former Killie ace is disappointed St Mirren were again unable to achieve their goal of finishing in the top six, missing out this time by four points.
But he believes their recent performances give them cause for optimism heading into the summer and next season, especially with new boss Stephen Robinson at the helm.
Brophy said: “We were decent. I don’t think it was probably the best game to watch, to be honest.
“We’ve finished the season in decent form, with four clean sheets in a row. Hopefully we can take that into next season.
“This season’s been a bit up and down, we haven’t really done what we wanted to do.
“But it’s good to finish strongly and hopefully we can come back stronger next time around.
“It’s definitely something to build on.
“Obviously before that we were on a bad run and we’ve turned it around at just the right time.
“We needed to or we could have been in trouble.
“We need to take the positives out of the last four games into next season and move forward.
“We want to be successful next season.”
