St Mirren manager Craig McLeish has declared his belief that his side can repeat their Premier Sports Cup triumph as they begin their defence against Dumbarton this afternoon. The Buddies boss, who revealed that West Bromwich Albion striker Eseosa Sule is close to becoming his sixth summer signing, insists his players are ready to fight to retain the silverware.
Defence of the Trophy Begins
St Mirren travel to Cliftonhill to face Dumbarton, with the Sons' own stadium still undergoing pre-season work. McLeish, who may give debuts to new signings Jacob Chapman, Samuel Ramos, Ryan Carr, and Chris Mochrie, dismissed any nerves about being holders.
“It’s excitement. I’ve said that to the boys - we're going in as holders. We need to defend our trophy and we're ready to do that,” McLeish said. “We need to get off to a good start, make sure we progress through the group and then make sure somebody's got to wrestle the trophy from you. Don't give it up easily because it's ours to defend.”
Experience and Ambition
McLeish highlighted the experience of players who featured in last year's final, urging them to draw on those memories. “There's a lot of boys that were involved in the final that are still here with us and we have to use those experiences. There's no fear going into this, there's no nervousness about being the holders. We have to go into it with full of confidence and full of belief that we've done it last year.”
He set ambitious targets for the campaign: “Why can you not go and do it again? Why can we not finish top six? Why can we not qualify for Europe? Why can we not go and be at the top end of the table challenging? We have to aim at that, whether we fall short that's fine. But I'd rather that than we aim at surviving in the league and you fall short of that. Then you're in trouble. So we have to have ambition, we have to have belief, we have to have confidence and it's down to us.”
Transfer Updates
New signing Henry Fieldson, who joined from Queen's Park on Thursday, is not expected to feature. However, McLeish is hopeful that a deal for former Celtic youngster Sule, 20, is nearing completion. Trialists Stephen Mallan and Dylan Reid continue to train with the club.
“Nothing is signed yet. It was getting close to the final stages but that's not going to be done in time for the game. He's one that we think really highly of,” McLeish said of Sule. Regarding Mallan and Reid, he added: “Stephen and Dylan are still in at the moment. I spoke to the two of them just to update them about our situation and they both know that, unfortunately, their positions, they're not priority positions for us right now at the moment. But we'd still like to spend time with them and see if there's anything we could do with them once our situation maybe changes a little bit with movement in and out of the club.”
McLeish cited budget constraints: “Just with budget restraints, we can't go and spend that type of money just now on non-priority positions. I have to add to the forward line, we have to still look at left-sided centre-back. So they both know the situation and now it's down to them whether they want to spend a little bit more time with us or they might both have other opportunities to explore and we have to respect that too.”
