St Mirren's Ambitious Push for Top Six Under Craig McLeish
St Mirren manager Craig McLeish has made his position clear before a ball is kicked in anger: if the Buddies are going to chase the top six again, they will do it from a base of steel, not romance.
He knows exactly what he walked into. Last season he arrived under pressure, inheriting a side that had grown used to punching above its weight under Stephen Robinson – three straight top-half finishes and a League Cup win had altered expectations in Paisley. McLeish’s first task was survival, and he achieved it the hard way, via the play-offs.
That experience has shaped his message. Survival, he insists, is nowhere near an ambitious enough target.
“If you just aim at surviving in this league and you fall short of that, you're in trouble,” he said, setting the bar higher than mere safety. “We have to aim as high as we possibly can and top six and European qualification is what we're going to strive to achieve.”
Those are bold words, but they are not empty. St Mirren have already shown a different attacking face in the Premier Sports Cup, rattling in 12 goals in the group stage. McLeish has leaned into that, shifting his system to accommodate an extra forward and making tweaks that suggest he wants more than attritional football.
“The way we're playing with an extra attacker, with some of the bodies we've brought in, hopefully that's the bit that we can solve this season as well,” he explained. The attacking intent is clear, but he refuses to let anyone forget what built the club’s recent success. “We also can't get away from what's made St Mirren successful over the years.
“We have to be hard to play against. We have to enjoy keeping clean sheets. We have to love defending and being aggressive in everything we do. It's keeping those core bits and then adding the attacking side to it as well.”
That is the balancing act: turn St Mirren into a side that can hurt opponents without losing the edge that kept them in games when the margins were thin. McLeish wants his players to embrace that dual identity, to relish both the ugly work and the moments of flair.
“We want it to be exciting. We want it to be good to watch, fun for the players to play in. I want it to be enjoyable for the supporters,” he said. “We will be hard working, we'll be high energy and we have to be tough to beat first and foremost.”
Behind those lines sits a clear blueprint: intensity out of possession, greater threat in it, and a team that runs for each other. The recruitment drive reflects that plan.
McLeish has already dipped into Rangers’ talent pool to bring in 20-year-old midfielder Paul Nsio on loan, a move designed to add legs and versatility to the middle of the park. Nsio is not coming in as a luxury; he is being asked to give St Mirren attributes they have struggled to find.
“Paul brings us a kind of level of physicality and athleticism that we can't source,” McLeish said. “He can cover a number of different positions.”
That flexibility matters in a squad that still feels a player or two light. McLeish has been open about his desire to add more, even if not every target has landed. A proposed move for Ghanaian midfielder Abdul Hakim Sulemana has collapsed, a reminder of the realities St Mirren operate under when competing for signings.
So the picture is clear. A manager who arrived as a firefighter now talks like a builder. The language has shifted from survival to Europe, from scraping by to setting standards. The question, as the season looms, is whether St Mirren can carry that ambition from the training ground to the sharp end of the Premiership table.
