St Mirren manager Jack Ross admits he is delighted with the club’s close-season transfer activity after signing seven new players – and insists there is still room for more.

Striker Gavin Reilly became the Buddies’ latest recruit after joining from Hearts on Monday.

Cammy Smith, Jordan Kirkpatrick, Gregor Buchanan, Craig Samson and the two Ross Stewarts have already put pen to paper.

Ross is also hoping the club can fend off offers from Burton Albion to retain playmaker Lewis Morgan and has been linked with a move for former Norwich City midfielder Ray Grant.

The Paisley boss has his eyes on a promotion charge this season after Saints pulled off the great escape last term to beat the drop.

Ross said: “We are fairly well advanced in our planning and an awful lot of work has gone in over these last six weeks.

“I’m quite pleased with where we are at. Gavin is a player both (assistant manager) James Fowler and I have worked with before. I think he is someone still very young with a lot of potential.

“We are almost there squad wise which is terrific before we even start pre-season. I think the ones we have brought in have been a good mixture. 

“There’s a really good balance between the group in terms of recruits at different stages with different experience.

“I would like possibly to bring in another couple. It just depends on what happens over the pre-season period.

“We have four trialists joining us for pre-season as well that will allow us to look at players in certain positions that we might need to 
strengthen more.”

New recruits Buchanan, Kirkpartick and the two Stewarts will make the step up from part-time football and Jack confessed they will take time to adapt to the demands of full-time football.

“Ross Stewart (goalkeeper), Jordan Kirkpatrick and Gregor Buchanan have all experienced full-time football before, so they know what they are coming into,” said Ross.

“The good thing is they are coming in for the first day of pre-season when everybody is getting used to the demands on their body after having a rest period over the summer, so they’ll be fine.

“The fitness differences between part-time and full-time players are much less than they used to be. They’ll be fine, they’ll love being back in this environment.”

The draw for the Betfred Cup group stage was recently announced with the Buddies set to square off against Partick Thistle, Livingston, Airdrieonians and Stranraer in Group H.

And Ross is excited for the competition to come around and hopes his side use it as a springboard to get their league campaign off to the best possible start.

“It’s a tough group,” he said. “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 apart from obviously qualifying for the latter stages, it also helps to continue the momentum we had from the end of last season and creates a momentum going into the opening league game.

“It excites supporters and undoubtedly the cup runs helped continue to galvanise the team last season. Hopefully, we have a squad now that has depth that will enable us to deal with these games when they come around.”