Stephen Robinson admits the injury crisis ripping through his squad couldn’t have come at a worse time for his top-six hunting Buddies.
But the St Mirren boss is confident the experienced heads he has left available will help steer the club’s youngsters through two potentially decisive fixtures that could shape their entire campaign.
The Saints take on relegation-battling Ross County at the SMiSA Stadium this afternoon knowing a win would keep them above top-half rivals Aberdeen regardless of the Dons’ result against Celtic, which kicks off at the same time. Robinson’s troops then march north next weekend to take on St Johnstone in Perth.
With fifth-placed Livingston taking on Rangers this afternoon, the Paisley club know today represents an enticing opportunity to cement their spot in the top six with just seven games left – after this weekend’s action – to the split.
The Buddies are without a host of key players today, with Keanu Baccus, Alex Gogic, Scott Tanser and Curtis Main joining an already packed treatment room after picking up knocks against Motherwell on Wednesday night.
But Robinson is confident the older pros he can still call on will help guide the club’s academy prospects that will swell the Buddies bench this afternoon.
He explained to Renfrewshire Live Sport: “It’s probably one of the most testing periods we’ve had in terms of injuries. We have big, big doubts on Gogic. He’s very unlikely to be fit for County and so is Baccus. Main is unlikely to be fit either.
“We haven’t had a chance to get a scan for Scott with the backlog of scans, so we won’t know about him until Tuesday but he’s out for Saturday.
“It puts a big strain on the squad, but our starting XI will still be very competitive. I have a lot of belief in those boys and a lot of belief in our young boys, too.
“There will be boys on the bench people have never heard of. We don’t have loads of experienced options to turn to, which was always going to be the case when you run with a small squad and allow people to leave on deadline day due to finances.
“I made it clear to people if we got injuries we’d be in trouble and now we’ve got them all now in the one position. That happens to everybody, but we’ve just hit our spell at a very unfortunate time.
“You need that luck and we had it at the start of the season when we picked a relatively similar team every week. Unfortunately, we’re not able to do that at this time, but that’s football.
“Our starting XI will still be full of experienced players, but the bench will be made up of probably seven or eight really young kids.
“Lewis Jamieson has come back in the building again, Keiran Offord too. We know they’re not ready to be top-six SPFL players but there’s a lot of potential and there’s now an opportunity to step up to the plate.
“People like Ryan Flynn, who is brilliant around the place and an absolutely fantastic footballer, will guide the young boys and talk them through games. We’ve got that throughout the squad.”
Having lost so many midfielders in a short space of time, Robinson could have been forgiven for cursing his luck further when young talent Dylan Reid’s switch to Crystal Palace was finally confirmed on Thursday evening.
While admitting he’d have loved to have worked more with the 17-year-old, the Saints boss insists the move worked for both the player and the club going forward.
Robinson said: “Dylan hasn’t been in the building for awhile, he’s been down with Palace. It was an educational component of the deal that held things up. That was always going to go through, though, we didn’t have a fear about that.
“If you add Ethan Erhahon in terms of the boys who have gone out of the club and are injured then Dylan would have probably been starting in terms of the injuries we’ve got in midfield.
“We’ve worked hard to get him to that stage, so that’s unfortunate. But good players leave the club. That’s the model the club want to go down, for next season as well.”
Robinson has never been shy in giving young players opportunities – having handed the likes of David Turnbull, Allan Campbell and Jake Hastie their first taste of action during his time at Fir Park.
He hopes he can repeat the trick in Paisley, adding: “The younger boys have got talent. Now it’s just about chucking them on and seeing what they do. They have to take their opportunities. We sometimes think people aren’t ready to start games but when you look at the bench, and I did this at Motherwell, sometimes you throw people in and they come to the fore. Young kids have enthusiasm and absolutely no fear.
“Hastie got his chance because we went on a bad run and had loads of injuries. David got his chance because technically he’s the best player I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t a real hard one that one!
“But Allan Campbell, Chris Cadden, Dean Cornelius, they all came through and got opportunities in these kind of circumstances.
“That’s the model the club wants to go after and it will certainly give a flavour of what’s to come next season.”
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