IAN MURRAY has called for his St Mirren players to “toughen up pretty quickly” following a difficult start to the season. The Paisley club have taken just one point from their opening three SPFL Championship games and were knocked out of the League Cup on Tuesday by Livingston who they meet again in the league on Saturday. Murray believes his side needs to start handling the pressure better.

“We have to now show a bit of character and show we can stand up [and be counted] on Saturday as there is going to be pressure on us – there’s no question about that now,” said the manager. “The fans will demand we win the game and if we have any aspirations to actually make a go of things this season then we need three points.

“Saturday will be a totally different game but I always think it’s hard to beat the same team twice in a row. So we’ve got an ideal opportunity to win the game but we have to show a lot better than we have been doing. Forget about the football side of things – we need to show a lot more tactical know-how and nous in the way we play. We’re carrying a lot of young players but we need to toughen up pretty quickly.”

Meanwhile, the man who could become St Mirren’s answer to Ann Budge has revealed that takeover talks are progressing well. Gordon Scott, a former board member at the Paisley club, is fronting a bid to buy out the majority shareholding held by a consortium of directors before eventually turning it over to the fans, similar to the arrangement between Budge and the Hearts supporters.

“It’s still fairly early in the discussions but I’m happy with how things are going,” said Scott. “We’ve agreed a confidentiality clause with the selling consortium so can’t say too much about the details at this point but talks are progressing and we’ll look to now take that to the next stage. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from supporters and will continue to try to push things along with their backing.”

George Adam MSP, chairman of the St Mirren Independent Supporters Association (SMiSA) who would one day take over the running of the club from Scott, was similarly positive and urged as many supporters as possible to lend their backing.

“We spoke to the selling consortium last week and we feel we are not too far away,” said Adam. “We’re working closely with them and Gordon, and it looks like we could find a way to reach some sort of agreement. Hopefully any fan yet to sign up to SMiSA will consider doing so in the near future as the greater our backing, the greater our chances are of making this takeover come to fruition.”