St Mirren assistant Brian Kerr says side are moving in the right direction

Assistant manager Brian Kerr believes stuttering St Mirren are on the right pathway as they look to go into the international break with a win over Dundee United.

The Buddies finished fifth in the Premiership last season to earn a European spot for the first time since 1987 and currently sit sixth, but they have won just one of their last nine matches across all competitions.

Kerr, who moved from head of first-team transition at St Mirren to assistant manager after Diarmuid O’Carroll departed the for under-21s lead coach role at Newcastle, said: “I think we’re moving the right direction.

“We’ve had some up-and-down results. But we’re in a position that if we win at the weekend, we can step into fourth place.

“So we know how important the weekend is going on an international break, and we always want to win the games, because it gives you a couple of weeks to enjoy things, if that’s possible at this level.

“So that’s something that we’re looking to achieve.

“We want to try and get the three points at the weekend, and hopefully from there we can start to move up and keep ourselves in that position where we want to be for next season.

“It’s a difficult league, and I don’t think we can expect anything.

“We know that we need to keep working hard and we have brought in good players in who know their jobs and responsibilities.

“And they need to understand that that’s required every week, that the hard work and resilience that the boys have showed over the last couple of years, needs to continue.

“United will be a tough game, as always. There’s no game in this league that’s easy and it’s a home game, a game that we want to win and pick up three points.”

Striker Mikael Mandron is also confident of impending improvement in form.

He said: “I think we’re very close to being a very good team. We’re very close to everything coming together. I think you can see it.

“You can see game after game that we are getting better, and the results will follow. That’s for sure.

“I think it’s about the full performance over the whole 90 minutes. I think we’ve had games where we’ve started well, and then the second half didn’t quite follow or vice versa, so being able to put in a performance along with the result. I think that’s the last thing that’s missing.”