Stephen Robinson is adamant the Buddies won’t get caught short on numbers again this season.
St Mirren ran with a very small squad last time around, sending several of their best youngsters out on loan to gain valuable first-team experience.
That decision almost came back to bite them at the end of the 2021/22 campaign though, with the Saints running dangerously low on players after the Scottish Premiership split.
While midfielder Dean McMaster and defender Daniel Finlayson have been allowed to join Airdrie and Linfield respectively on loan, Robinson doesn’t expect too many more to leave for fear they face the same problem in the coming campaign.
Robinson said: “We let Dean out on loan and kept Fraser Taylor and that was a conscious decision.
“Physically Dean was more ready to go out and he’ll do well. We might look to reverse that at Christmas, but we’ve only got a 20-man squad so we can’t really allow too many more to go out.
"Possibly one more will go out, but we like to have the youngsters in the building with us.
“I was going with 13 players for the last few games of the season, which could’ve been an absolute disaster. We can’t allow that to happen again.
“However, we can’t afford to run with a squad of 25, so we have to fill our squad with younger players. We’ll try to give them further game time this season.
“I’m happy with the younger kids. When they came on (against Northampton) they showed great enthusiasm. A bit of naivety at times at a few of the goals, but they’ll learn from that.
“I thought Kieran Offord was excellent. Lewis Jamieson - who I haven’t seen in an 11 vs 11 football situation because he was on loan last season and was just training - has done really well in pre-season too.”
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