Only our best will be good enough

St Mirren manager Jack Ross insists his side will have to be at their best to progress from their Betfred Cup group.

The Buddies have been drawn to face Partick Thistle, Livingston, Airdrie and Stranraer in the precursor to the league action kicking off.

But having assessed the draw, Ross believes Saints have every opportunity of making it through to the knockout stages.

Ross said:“It’s a tough group. It’s arguably, on paper, the hardest group.

“We’ll approach it seriously as if it is just as important as our first league games. We did that last year when I was at Alloa and we won all our group games and continued that momentum and form into the opening period of the season. That’s what we will look to do again.

“I want to go in and win every group game because it sees you qualify for the latter stages but second of all it continues the momentum we had from the end of last season and creates a momentum going into the opening league game.”