St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson has set a top-six target for next season as he promised “tough decisions” would move the club forward.

The former Motherwell boss is starting to make an impact on the pitch with three consecutive clean sheets and seven points to move the Buddies into eighth place in the cinch Premiership ahead of Sunday’s trip to Aberdeen.

The long-term aim is to improve on that with changes on and off the pitch afoot, including the arrival of his former Fir Park assistant Keith Lasley as chief operating officer and the anticipated appointment of Martin Foyle as chief scout.

Robinson told St Mirren TV: “We have to make tough decisions at the football club and release players that have done very well for the club. But I have to make those decisions, that’s what I am paid to do.

“We have signed four players already and they will be announced in the coming weeks.

“I believe our aim is to finish top six next season. We haven’t done that ever in the current league format. It’s a tough ask, everybody wants to do the same thing.

“But with the structure we are putting in the football club – a new chief executive coming in on Monday, a new head of recruitment, a new physio, a new strength and conditioning coach who hasn’t been in place since Christmas, it gives us a chance.

“If the structure is right, which it will be, and we add the right players to the players we have already got, then we’ve got a chance moving forward.

“Hopefully the fans can see we will put a team on the field that will run until they can’t run any more. That’s the minimum we have to give.

“We have to represent Paisley, which is a hard-working community, and I will repeat that because that needs to be ingrained in every player that comes into the football club.”