Junior Mendes sees similarities between current St Mirren gaffer Oran Kearney and former boss Jack Ross.

The one-time Buddies striker has rejoined the club this week as sports scientist, a post he has held with Partick Thistle since 2015.

Ross took St Mirren from the bottom of the Championship to the Premiership in 20 months, before heading to Sunderland, and Mendes is backing Kearney to retain the club’s top-flight status this season.

He said: “It’s a little bit like when Jack Ross came in here and he needed to turn things around. After speaking to the new manager, the one thing that strikes me, is there’s a lot of similarities between them.

“With the pragmatic approach, you need that, and Jack had that. I see that with the new manager as well. You come in and there’s a squad, over time that may change a little bit, I don’t know. Everybody’s got to pull in the right direction, everybody is at the moment, and we want to try to do our best to climb up the league.”

Junior Mendes

Mendes also recalls being part of the Saints squad that won the old second division under Tom Hendrie in the 1999/2000 season.

And despite being second favourite for relegation that year, Mendes remembers being relaxed going into the games, as the team just kept winning.

He continued: “We beat Rangers in pre season and everything seemed to click. I was really, really confident. Every team we were playing we were beating.

Jack Ross brought St Mirren up

"The first time we beat someone really comprehensively was against Raith Rovers, at the start of the season, and I was going into every game knowing we were going to win, it was quite surreal really.

“It was quite funny. There wasn’t too much talk about us being second favourites to go down, we started so strongly, and people started talking about the bubble bursting, we were like, 'not a chance'. I was really confident more so than any other season. Friday night, before a game, I’d be nervous most of the time.

"That season, Friday night before a game, I was sitting down, having a cup of tea, nice and relaxed.”

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