Boss Stephen Robinson claims St Mirren’s overall form this season has them relaxed ahead of the top-six crunch game at home to Kilmarnock on Saturday.

The Buddies could seal their first top-half finish since the split was introduced in Scotland’s top flight at the start of the century.

With one game remaining before the cinch Premiership splits into a top six and bottom six, the Paisley side are in fifth place, one point ahead of Hibernian and two ahead of Livingston.

They next face a struggling Killie side who are second-bottom of the table with one win in eight in all competitions, one point ahead of Ross County.

“It is hard to play it down but we are relaxed about it,” said Robinson, who revealed youngsters Jay Henderson and Lewis Jamieson have turned down new contract offers.

“We have gone about our business as we always do and the boys have trained really well. It is just about carrying out that game plan and playing as we do.

“We are not asking them to do anything they haven’t done throughout the season. We need to play as well as we have done, not worry about anything else that is going on and go and win the game.

“It is not false belief, it is belief based on what we have done.

“We know we can’t drop standards, we know we have to out-work and out-battle Kilmarnock, who have some very good players.

“We have to make sure we are at the top of our game to get the points and that’s what we aim to do.”

Reports claim Robinson’s assistant, Diarmuid O’Carroll, is Cliftonville’s first choice to be their new manager following Paddy McLaughlin’s resignation earlier in the week.

Former Morecambe attacker O’Carroll, 36, who is also part of Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland backroom team, 00won league titles with Cliftonville in 2013 and 2014.

Robinson said: “There has been no contact from Cliftonville.

“It doesn’t surprise me that there is interest in Diarmuid. He has been a huge part of our success this season, a great guy as well.

“With all respect to Cliftonville, I think Diarmuid can potentially go a little bit higher but he will have an opportunity to do that a little further in his career. But there has been no official contact.

“I joked with him about it. Diarmuid obviously played for Cliftonville, he had a lot of success there. I think they won successive league titles when Diarmuid was there so he was obviously going to be a favourite there.

“It is a good football club. The Northern Irish league is really on the up, attendances, the quality, the players coming through, so it is certainly not being disrespectful but I hope he is happy here. I am not surprised and it is a testament and compliment to his work this season.

“He is certainly someone we want to keep at the football club.”