Greg Kiltie says his Buddies have grown used to being written off this season.
And the creative midfielder is confident St Mirren can recover from their latest heartbreak by pulling off a second shock win against Celtic to prove their European aspirations aren’t over quite yet.
The Saints are massive underdogs to dish out the Hoops a first home defeat of the season this weekend, with the Paisley club’s chances of catching Hibs and Hearts suffering a brutal blow last weekend when Lawrence Shankland rescued the Jambos a point at the death.
Kiltie revealed predictions St Mirren would be relegated after a dismal League Cup group stage exit, sealed by a 2-0 defeat to Airdrie in which the playmaker was sent off, have fuelled the dressing room this season.
Now he’s determined to prove the doubters wrong again at Celtic Park on Saturday to try and give the Buddies’ European hopes a massive shot in the arm.
Speaking exclusively to the Paisley Daily Express, Kiltie said: “I think everybody after those League Cup defeats had us as odds on to go down. Everyone had written us off before the season even started.
“We lost the first two games of the league as well against Motherwell and Aberdeen.
“But I knew we had too much quality in this squad to go down and we bounced back from that bad start very well. We made the top-six when no one believed we stood a chance.
“We found a system that worked for us and that was a serious test of how well we could bounce back.
“It’s one thing to say you want to achieve something, but to actually go and do it takes a lot of quality and effort and we’ve shown we have both this season.
“The boys were gutted the way the Hearts game ended. Obviously it was very quiet in the dressing room after full-time, we were in a bit of shock.
“It would have put us only one point behind the Edinburgh clubs, but that’s football. Unfortunately we couldn’t get that win over the line.
“We can’t do anything about that game or the Hibs game now. We have to put it behind us and we’ve got a fantastic set of boys that have dealt with setbacks well already this season.
“We’ve got a very tough run, the top three teams in the league still to play within the space of seven days.
“It doesn’t get much tougher than that, but no one expected much from us all season and we’ve proved a lot of people wrong.
“Finishing in the top-six was definitely a big achievement for us. We know we’ve dropped points in our first two games after the split, but we’ve just got relish the challenge that faces us now.”
St Mirren can take heart from the fact that, prior to last weekend, they were the only team to have beaten Ange Postecoglou’s treble-chasing side this season in the league.
Stephen Robinson’s well-drilled team have also given strong accounts of themselves against the champions this season, despite being on the sore end of some heavy scorelines when Celtic have capitalised late on in matches against ten men.
Kiltie insists his side must keep all eleven players on the pitch at Celtic Park to give them the best chance of success in Glasgow.
He said: “We’ve beaten Celtic before and we have to take confidence from that. They will feel more comfy at home I’m sure and Celtic Park is probably the toughest test in Scotland right now.
“We’re under no illusion it will be tough, but we’ll go there and set ourselves up to play the game the way we want.
“We’ve turned up well against them this season, not just in the win in Paisley.
“Charles Dunne and Richard Taylor were both sent off at key moments in our last two games. We were well in both games until those decisions and we need to make sure we don’t go a man down again.
“Celtic have serious quality and can bring on millions of pounds worth of back up.
“We need to have quality on the ball and be brave to try and compete with them.”
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