Loanee Lawrence Shankland says he'll continue to try and impress when he gets the chance as he looks to win back a spot in the St Mirren starting eleven. The striker came on as a substitute in Saturday's loss to Dundee United and put in a decent half hour showing, almost scoring twice for the Saints, only to be thwarted by good goalkeeping and last ditch defending. Speaking to stmirren.com in the aftermath, Shankland admitted that he'll keep working hard and try to make an impression.
"When you get your chance coming off the bench you're looking to impress," he said. "You just need to come on, work hard and do as much as you can to get involved in the game and I felt I did that. We were unlucky not to score especially with the header off the line and Cammy Bell makes a good save from the volley."
It's football," he continued. "You'll find there are times you'll be on the sidelines watching. Obviously it's frustrating as a player. You want to be on the pitch, but sometimes you need to accept that you need to be patient, keep working hard and hopefully your chance will come and, like today, you get a good bit of game time and just go on and do as much as you can.
Sometimes it's hard to come on in a game, especially against good teams like Dundee United, but I felt the team was doing well and I came on at a good time. We had a bit of momentum going forward and I managed to get a couple of chances in amongst that."
The striker, who scored 10 goals in his first loan spell at the Buddies last season, believes the side played well against Dundee United and were unlucky not to get anything from the game.
He said: "We definitely matched them - we matched them all the way. We played really good football I felt and, even watching it [from the bench], when I came on I knew I could just go and get involved. We were passing well and it gave me chances to pick up spaces and get the ball."
Shankland was impressed with Jack Ross' first week of training last week and said: "It's new, fresh, there's a really high tempo at training and it's been a good standard throughout the week. That probably helped us today, how high the standard was. We went out there today and showed how good we can be on the ball."
The Saints are without a game this weekend meaning it will be two full weeks of training under the new manager before getting ready for next weekend's trip to Edinburgh to face Hibernian. The striker believes that the Buddies can take belief from their last visit to the capital, where St Mirren defeated the hosts 2-1 in the IRN-BRU Cup.
We went there a couple of weeks ago and put in a good performance," he said. "I felt that we got in Hibs' faces and frustrated them a bit. We went there and got a result, we went there last year and got a result so hopefully we can go and get another one."
