St Mirren boss and ex-Hatter Robinson insists it is a 'compliment' to be linked with Luton job

Former Luton midfielder and current St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson has declared it as a ‘compliment’ to be linked with the vacancy at Kenilworth Road after becoming the bookies favourite for the job this morning.

The 47-year-old moved to Kenilworth Road during his playing days when signing for a fee of £50,000 from Preston North End in 2002, going on to feature 211 times and scoring 12 goals for the Hatters, who won promotion from League One to the Championship in that time.

After hanging up his boots, the Northern Ireland international, who had a spell managing his country’s youth sides, also assisting the senior team, headed to Scotland in February 2015 as number two to Ian Baraclough at Motherwell.

Robinson began his own stint as manager in July 2016, taking charge of Oldham Athletic, but returned to Motherwell six months later, as assistant to Mark McGhee.

Once he was sacked a fortnight later, the ex-Hatter took the reins himself, reaching both the Scottish Cup and League Cup final that season, before resigning in December 2020.

He went to Morecambe in June 2021, although headed north of the border once more in February 2022, taking over at St Mirren.

This term, he has led the Buddies to eighth in in the Scottish Premier League, masterminding a 2-0 victory over champions Celtic recently and is now in at 2/1 with SkyBet to replace Nathan Jones at Kenilworth Road after he left for Southampton on Thursday.

Speaking to the Daily Record, Robinson, who has been linked with Hatters job in the past, said: "I am used to it now.

"I suppose credit to the players and staff that you get linked with jobs but I am focused on a very hard job here.

"We are trying to over-achieve against the odds and that is what we are doing every week and we are doing it to the best of our ability so my concentration is solely on that.

"I absolutely loved it (playing with Luton Town). We got promotion, nothing but brilliant memories for me.

"I've still got friends there and still speak to a lot of people from there and as a player it is a great football club but there is not a correlation between management and a player.

"It is credit to the players, if you are getting linked with jobs you are doing something right.

"We are joint-fifth, we are a point off fourth so it is credit to everyone here.

"I get the blame when things go wrong and the credit when things go right but there is a lot more people involved in the whole picture.

"So we will take it as a compliment but we'll solely focus on the job in front of us."