St Mirren’s Revival: Old DNA Drives New Success

Simo Valakari has seen enough. While most eyes have been fixed on the usual Premiership storylines, the St Johnstone manager has been quietly tracking a different threat – a St Mirren side he believes are building something serious away from the glare.

Craig McLeish’s team opened their league campaign with a sharp, controlled 2-0 win over last season’s surprise package Falkirk, backing up an already impressive start in the League Cup. Three wins from four in the group stage, 12 goals scored, and safe passage to the next round as holders: it’s not the profile of a team easing into a season. It’s one trying to make a statement.

Valakari, whose own side bounced straight back to the Premiership at the first attempt after relegation, has been studying them closely.

“I’ve been very impressed,” he admitted, before outlining exactly why.

St Mirren, he pointed out, dragged themselves through a brutal campaign last season, surviving only via the play-offs. That escape, in his eyes, has sharpened them rather than scarred them. With the pressure of immediate crisis lifted, McLeish and his staff have been able to strip things back and rebuild the team’s game.

“I can see what they try to do,” Valakari said. They’ve recruited “good footballers”, players who can handle the ball and execute a clearer attacking plan. But the change hasn’t come at the cost of identity.

The core, he insists, is still unmistakably St Mirren.

They remain, as he put it, “very, very tough”. A side that “really want to bully you”. That edge – the old St Mirren DNA – now sits alongside greater fluency and variety in possession, and it is that blend that has caught his eye.

There is experience scattered through the squad, players who know the Premiership and its demands. Yet Valakari believes the key advantage lies elsewhere. “No one expected anything from them,” he argued, and that lack of external pressure has allowed McLeish’s team to grow “a little bit under the radar”.

Not to him, though.

“I have been watching them all the time,” he said. Pre-season friendlies, competitive openers, the small tactical tweaks – nothing has gone unnoticed. He talks about a “clear identity” emerging, and he points to the Falkirk game as the clearest evidence so far.

Falkirk away is rarely described as comfortable. The artificial surface, the tight feel of the stadium, the energy from the stands – it’s a test as much of mentality as of quality. St Mirren, Valakari noted, went there and delivered a “very solid game”.

They picked their moments. When they needed to keep the ball, they did. When the chance came to be “very vertical”, they were ruthless, with aggressive runs in behind stretching Falkirk and opening the spaces they wanted. It was controlled, it was purposeful, and it was exactly what Valakari expected from a side that looks like it has finally joined up its ideas with its execution.

That win, on the back of a strong cup run, has given McLeish’s players a platform. They have momentum now, and they know it.

“They see this opportunity now as, ‘we won the first match, now we play home’,” Valakari said. The message is clear: St Mirren are not treating this as a lucky start. They are trying to build something sustained.

For St Johnstone, that makes the upcoming meeting as awkward as it is intriguing. A newly promoted side, still settling back into the top flight, walking into the home of a team quietly gathering pace and confidence.

Valakari doesn’t hide from the scale of the task. He calls it “a tough challenge” – but “an exciting challenge” too. A chance to measure his returning Saints against a club that have clawed their way out of trouble and now look determined to stay well clear of it.

If St Mirren really are moving under the radar, this might be the fixture that forces everyone else to start paying attention.