Cupfinal wouldbe payback for fans’ faith in us
ST MIRREN striker John Sutton is desperate to pay back the “blind faith” of the club’s supporters by firing them to a cup final on Sunday.
The Buddies will take on Welsh side The New Saints in the semi-finals of the Irn-Bru Cup, a competition that has provided some rare glimmers of light for the long-suffering Saints fans this season.
And Sutton believes that previous results achieved in the cup competitions during a mostly miserable campaign show that his side can beat anyone on their day.
“We don’t want to look too far ahead, but every competition you are in you want to win,” Sutton said.
“We’re in touching distance of the final and it would be brilliant for everyone at the club.
“Hopefully we can get a result. It’s going to be a tricky game for us but, as we’ve proven this year in the cup, we can be a match for anyone.
“We’ve beaten both Hibs and Dundee away from home, so hopefully that will continue this weekend.
“It would be great to give the fans something to cheer, they’ve been brilliant.
“They keep backing us and have shown a lot of blind faith in us to an extent.
“Hopefully we could get a winner’s medal too, but there is a lot to do before we can get our hands on the trophy.
“It’s a horrible cliche but we are honestly just taking each game as it comes just now. We want to win on Sunday in the cup and we want to win the next Saturday in the league.
“Every game we play in we want to win, and it’s not like we can choose one or the other, we have to win as many as we can.”
Given their dire predicament at the foot of the Championship table, you would be forgiven for thinking that the fight against relegation would be top priority.
But Sutton is adamant that every game is vital now to St Mirren as they look to build up some momentum at last in a desperately inconsistent campaign.
HE said: “It was a good result last week and East Fife are on a really good run, so to pull out a win was great for us. We want to try and take the good feeling from that result into this weekend.
“There have been a few occasions this year when we’ve won again and thought, ‘Here we go, we can go on a nice little run now’, but we’ve never managed to consolidate it.
“Our mind-set is about keeping that going in this match this weekend and trying to build a little head of steam.
“I don’t think anyone is kidding themselves on by thinking we’ve done okay this year, but there is still plenty to play for.If we could win a cup, stay up in the league and have the Celtic tie to look forward to, then there is still a lot to aim for.”
Sutton also warned against complacency, though, going into Sunday’s meeting with TNS.
“They are something of an unknown quantity for the Saints, but they are all too aware of the record-breaking run of 27 consecutive wins they achieved earlier in the season.
“I’ve certainly seen some coverage about them because they are on some run in the league, it’s been incredible,” Sutton said. “For a team to do that at any level is phenomenal.
“So they are going to come full of confidence and it’s going to be tricky for us.”