'It’s all to play for': Stephen Robinson talks up St Mirren’s European hopes

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson praised his players for staying in the fight for European qualification after Mikael Mandron’s goal earned a hard-fought 1-0 win over Aberdeen at the SMISA Stadium.

The striker, who signed a new contract this week, controlled Mark O’Hara’s outswinging free-kick on his chest before lashing home a fierce volley to score the only goal of the game.

Aberdeen’s Jeppe Okkels had a goal ruled out by VAR, but otherwise St Mirren restricted the Dons to few openings as they secured a vital win.

That result, coupled with Dundee United’s 3-1 defeat to Hibernian at Easter Road, means the Saints are now only five points off the fifth-placed Tangerines ahead of the match between the two sides at Tannadice next weekend.

Robinson said: “People thought I was crazy when I said that we could get into Europe. I know this group of players.

“I know the talent and desire they have and people thought we would turn up for these two games and not put everything into it and that’s not how my teams work.

“I’m delighted with the win. I didn’t think we started well today. It took until the goal was disallowed for us to get into our rhythm. There’s no rhyme or reason behind that.

“I thought the subs were terrific. When we needed to, we defended really well. I thought we deserved to win without being at our very best.

“We’ve shown we can compete with the best teams in the league who have spent a lot of money.

“Aberdeen have spent very well and recruited well. But to match that and be the better side, in terms of creating chances, is credit to the players.

“We’ve got everything to play for. We have to go and win. (Dundee United boss) Jim Goodwin’s had very good results against us and he holds all the cards against us.

“It’s up to us to break them down. They’re a good side who have a good manager and they’ve had a terrific season, but it’s all to play for certainly.

“When you get top six it’s easy to go, ‘The gap’s too big’, but what we’ve done – and it’s still going to be hard – is given ourselves a chance and that doesn’t surprise me.”

Aberdeen boss Jimmy Thelin rued his side’s failure to create chances after the Dons failed to have a shot on target as they slipped to their first defeat in nine games.

He said: “It was a tight game. I don’t think we did enough to deserve to win, but I am not sure we were so bad as to deserve to lose.

“It was one of those games where you needed to do something special to win it. We did a lot of good things and were almost there sometimes, but not quite enough to deserve to win it.

“So we have to improve some areas in our away games to deserve to win. Today it was not there, but also credit to St Mirren for the way we played.

“It is not over yet, we have three more difficult games to play and you have to keep believing until the end of the season and keep going.”