St Mirren boss hails historic win over Rangers and how 'headline' result had been on the cards

The Northern Irishman celebrated the third anniversary of taking over at the Paisley club with a comprehensive 2-0 win to further pile the pressure on Rangers manager Philippe Clement.

Second-half goals from Mikael Mandron and substitute Olutoyosi Olusanya secured victory with Robinson keen to give credit to his players.

“You can’t ask for more than that,” he said afterwards, having quipped that it felt more like 30 years in the job. “It is an extension of our performances (in recent weeks), you don’t get the credit when you lose, emotions are high. But we played very well in the last three games, I believe we were better than Hearts and Hibs in our performances. Today we got our rewards.

“We have raised expectations at this football club and it’s not because we have massive resources or an injection of cash. It is because of the squad of players. They deserve all the credit for the performance.”

Robinson was asked whether he sensed vulnerability in Rangers, who were looking to atone for a historic Scottish Cup defeat against Queen’s Park two weekends ago. The home stands quickly grew uneasy as St Mirren made their intention to press against Rangers clear from the start.

“Look, I just want to talk about St Mirren,” he said. “It is not my job to talk about Rangers. That is Philippe’s job. My job is to acknowledge a very good performance. We sensed we were in control of the game and took our chances when they came. We did not feel we were under a lot of threat. That is three clean sheets in six, that’s the key to winning football matches.

“I believe it is credit to the St Mirren players,” he added. “I won’t say anything bad about the Rangers players. My opinion on Rangers does not matter. My opinion on us is we had a game plan and we were good at carrying it out. We have been very good for a period of time without getting headline results, we got that today through hard work, endeavour and quality and we have another big game on Wednesday (v Hearts).”