Stephen Robinson wishes he had more time to bed in his new recruits ahead of St Mirren’s League Cup opener against Montrose.
But he insists the Buddies’ new arrivals already know the standards he demands after a post-match dressing room lesson at Cappielow.
Saints head into this Saturday’s trip to Angus on the back of an underwhelming 2-0 defeat at the hands of fierce rivals Morton.
New additions Zach Hemming, Conor McMenamin and Mikael Mandron all featured on Saturday as they aim to get to grips with their new club.
And Robinson is certain they already understand what’s required from them every time they pull on the black and white stripes, with competition for places now heating up in Paisley.
He explained: “I made it clear to everyone in the dressing room that every game means something to our fans.
“There’s plenty of work still to do. Ultimately, you can’t defend like that and we know that.
“It was one long ball and one second phase of a set play, so there’s lots of work still to do.
“Our defending has to be better. There’s a lot of competition at this football club now for places.
“I want people fighting and dying for this football club. I want them to know what it means every time they pull that shirt on.
“I’d rather us lose games now, in pre-season, than carry that into the cup competition.
“Last year we won a lot of pre-season games. This season we’ve got a shock, but I’ve made it abundantly clear to everyone how important every game and every training session is.
“Anyone new to the building will be left in no doubt of what standards we expect as a football club. Some of them are still to get there.”
Robinson has never sugar-coated his dislike of the group stage of the League Cup, which he believes sees Premiership clubs take on lower league opponents too early in their pre-season preparations.
While he would rather have had more time on the training pitch with his squad, he’s determined to improve on last year’s campaign when Saints went crashing out of the competition after embarrassing defeats to Arbroath and Airdrie.
Robinson said: “We’ll make sure we’re well set to go into the first cup game. I’ve expressed before that the competition is very early on in the season.
“You haven’t got your full squad established, you haven’t got your system tweaked with things you want to try,
“You’re thrown into the deep end and everyone is in the same boat. The opposition that we have, we should win and we should qualify.
“We should have last year as well and we didn’t. Nothing will be taken for granted and no one at this football club will turn up and expect anything to happen. We have to make it happen.”
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