It can be hard to ignore criticism when it’s raining down from all sides.
But experienced Saints boss Stephen Robinson insists he’s learned to dodge it wherever it’s coming from as he strives for perfection in Paisley.
The Buddies manager has copped a fair amount of flak during his fledgling tenure so far, having only just picked up his second win in ten games since taking over from Jim Goodwin in February.
Both of those victories have come against the two teams at the bottom of the Premiership table, with the jury still out on the 47-year-old among many St Mirren supporters.
Nevertheless, Robinson is adamant he’ll keep avoiding the newspapers and the social media pages as he continues to focus on doing things his way at the SMISA Stadium.
Robinson told Express Sport: “I don’t read anything that is said about me and I learned that a long time ago.
“I used to read the papers when I first became the Motherwell manager.
“But if you read the good things then you have to believe the bad ones as well.
“I hear people say they don’t read things about themselves, but I genuinely don’t.
“I’m not on any social media or anything like that and I try to focus on the job.
“It could influence your decisions and if you read it you can’t take it back.
“Unfortunately I think my family reads things about me and it affects them more than me.
“But I believe in what I and my staff are doing. I believe in the players and what we will do going forward.
“You have to be single minded and no one puts pressure on themselves more than me.
“The results haven’t been good enough, and we weren’t able to continue the good spell we had in the New Year.
“No one is more frustrated about that as I want to take the club forward.
“I won’t look into how other people think I should do it though. I will do it my way.”
While Saturday’s significant victory against St Johnstone made St Mirren’s Premiership survival much more likely, Robinson isn’t taking anything for granted ahead of struggling Dundee’s visit to the SMISA Stadium this weekend.
The Saints manager admits he is already building for next season though, with a host of targets currently being worked on.
Robinson said: “I am very much focused on this season and that’s our priority.
“But we are speaking to other players, as every other manager is doing in terms of preparing for next season.
“We have some signings ready to go over the line, but I won’t discuss names.
“I’m not like some managers who speak about our players on a regular basis unfortunately, but that’s up to them.
“I try to keep things in house until we announce it.
“We have good plans for next season but we have to make sure we are a Premiership club.
“It’s difficult to attract players when you are in a dogfight.
“I have a lot of targets, you get some, you lose out on others but every club is the same.
“We are well prepared with what we want to do. My main focus now though is making sure we stay in the division.”
