Stephen Robinson dreams of Paisley ties in Europe after Buddies’ top-six finish

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson insisted European football was the next target after sealing the club’s first top-six finish since 1985.

The Paisley side faltered in their final game before the split – losing 2-0 at home to Kilmarnock – but still made the cut thanks to Livingston’s loss at Dundee United.

The top five in the cinch Premiership will qualify for European football unless either Falkirk or Inverness win the Scottish Cup and Robinson said that had to be the target.

He said: “We have done what we set out to do at the start of the season.

“A club of our size has to stay in the division and we did that quite a while ago. We have now achieved top six and we have beaten everyone outside of Rangers, so there’s no reason why we can’t get into Europe.

“I believe we could get three home games. I’ll let the boys enjoy their night and then we’ll go again and we’ll then be doing everything in our power.

“I’m never satisfied. I want more. This has been the toughest challenge of my career, in terms of dealing with the finances and what I believed the club was going to do before we were hit with news of losses.

“We have had to strip the club bare and everyone stuck together. This group of boys have been amazing.

“We have a lot of talented players but, more importantly, we have 22 good people and it’s nice to see the good guys do well in football for once.”

Kilmarnock lost striker Kyle Vassell to a hamstring injury during the win in Paisley and manager Derek McInnes hopes he will recover in time for the post-split fixtures.

He said: “I don’t think it’s anything too significant. We’re probably grateful that we don’t play now for a couple of weeks and that gives him every chance as he’s very important.

“His assist and link-up play for the first goal for Donners [Liam Donnelly] was excellent. But he’s more than that. He gives a wee bit of inspiration to his team-mates and we look more likely to cause teams problems when he’s on the pitch.

“Hopefully it’s nothing too sinister. He’s not been training since the Hearts game a couple of weeks ago as he opened up his knee and we’ve tried to manage that and restrict his work so he’s comfortable going into games.

“And this was maybe a consequence of not being able to do enough work on the grass. We’ll get this hamstring looked at and hopefully he’ll be ready for the next game.”