Buddies are ‘terrific’

Sturrock aiming to find English nuggets for Utd

right now is Motherwell. Down south, Louis Moult was an in-and-out player but they brought him up and gave him the chance of a regular game. He cost them nothing and, as well as scoring a lot of goals for them, they then picked up £500,000 for him when he went to Preston at the end of the year.

“The boys Ryan Bowman and Craig Tanner were in the same category and they’ve come up and done very well.

“So if you know where and what to look for there is some good talent that can develop into very good players if you give them the right chance.”

While he’s excited about what he can do for United, a club he’s never hidden he remains a massive fan of, Paul’s quick to stress his return does not come with a guarantee of perfection.

“I think it’s clear United need to improve their recruitment, but the one thing I would say is in my time as a manager I’ve never been at a club where I didn’t make at least one signing and later wondered why I’d done it,” Paul said.

“Signings are always a gamble, I’ve spoken to Sir Alex (Ferguson) about that and he said you can’t be a manager without making bad signings, they’re always going to happen.

“What having someone doing the job I’ve taken with United does is give you the chance to have a good look at players, do checks on their character and fitness and then get the manager down to have a look at them or even send them up for training time under him so he can decide if they’re what he wants.” ST Mirren extended their Ladbrokes Championship lead to 11 points with a 2-0 victory over Dunfermline but manager Jack Ross was just as pleased to see his players reinforce their confidence with a “terrific” performance.

The l eaders needed a 69th-minute penalty from Harry Davis to break the deadlock before Liam Smith doubled their advantage three minutes later and Ross felt they were dominant throughout.

The Buddies boss said: “It was a terrific performance . It was obviously pleasing for me as a manager but most importantly for the players — sometimes they need a

Jack Ross reinforcement of how good they are. “It can come from me and my staff but sometimes they need to produce a performance that reminds them. “They are a good squad of players.”