St Mirren skipper relishes return of Sunderland boss Jack Ross to Paisley - and expects edge in friendly

The clash at the Simple Digital Arena in Paisley (3pm kick-off) sees former Buddies boss Jack Ross back at the Scottish Championship champions’ home for the first time since his close-season move to Wearside.

Ross guided St Mirren to the Championship title, a year after rescuing them from a serious threat of relegation.

Saints are now managed by ex-Sunderland and Everton defender Alan Stubbs, and midfielder McGinn is looking forward to locking horns with Ross’s new side.

“I think Sunderland will bring a good support, so it’ll maybe have a little edge to it, which we’re thankful to them for,” ex-Sheffield United and Watford man McGinn told stmirren.com.

“Hopefully we can have a decent crowd in here.

“Obviously the return of our old manager, who we all think highly of – I’m sure he’ll get a fantastic reception of our fans, so we’re looking forward to that.

“But also trying to put on a better showing than we did (in Tuesday’s Betfred Cup clash with non-league Spartans). I love playing here – I’m just glad to be back and hopefully next time we’re here we can put a much more positive performance on.”

Saints were held to a 2-2 draw by Spartans in their second Betfred Cup group tie, following on from a 0-0 draw at Kilmarnock, with Stubbs’ men picking up bonus points for penalty shoot-out victories after both games.

Reflecting on the midweek embarrassment, when they had to come from 2-0 down to force a shoot-out, McGinn said: “Deep frustration – really frustrated. I think in the end we maybe had enough chances, and if we were a bit more clinical, we’d have won the game.

“But it probably wouldn’t have changed the feeling on the first 60 minutes. It just wasn’t like us at all, and especially here.

“I’m just bursting to play, and to go out and perform like that is really frustrating.

“We were always half a second too slow to things, we didn’t move the ball quick enough and we weren’t clinical with the chances that came our way in the first half and especially at the end.”