At St. Mirren, Stephen Robinson has plenty of offensive alternatives. That will be demonstrated by the competition among Mikael Mandron, Jonah Ayunga, Toyosi Olusanya, Lewis Jamieson, and James Scott for three starting spots during the preseason.
But the Paisley manager believes he has given St Mirren’s attacking threat for the next season a new dimension in custodian Ellery Balcombe.
The towering loan goalkeeper, who is spending the season in Scotland from Brentford, has already demonstrated his value as a stopper of shots with a few impressive stops in games against Morton and Dunfermline.
Robinson also believes that Balcombe, with his excellent distribution that may see a change in style this season, will be another excellent custodian for Paisley.
The St Mirren manager stated, “We knew Ellery Balcombe was a top class custodian.” “He adds a fresh perspective to the scene by acting from the back. When he distributed against Dunfermline, it was of high grade.I’ve known him for a very long time, and since we didn’t play out of the back last season, [his distribution] is another weapon in our arsenal.
“We can do it now, but we still need to identify the appropriate times to do it, which is something we’re working on.
“On Saturday [at Dunfermline] he put big Mika [Mikael Mandron] clean through on goal and he’s certainly a good weapon for us.”Ellery has a significant role in helping us be brave and learn from our decisions.”
St Mirren’s third preseason matchup is this afternoon against Fleetwood Town. James Bolton will return to Paisley for Charlie Adam’s team when they take off at 3 p.m. at the SMiSA Stadium, barely one week after his unexpected departure for family reasons.
Before joining the Conference League second qualifying round later this month, Robinson spoke of the preseason preparations: “It’s a huge test for us and we picked four really hard pre-season games.”
“Dougie [Imrie] has done an excellent job leading Morton, and they have some very talented players.” They have excellent coaching.
“The same thing happened with James [McPake] at Dunfermline, and now we have two great coaches at Fleetwood, Charlie Adam and Mo Ross, and you have Paul Simpson at Carlisle as well.
“We wanted this because without it, you can’t learn things or recognise when something isn’t quite right.
“We have to make sure we are right hitting that first game in Europe.”
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