Stephen Robinson says it’s “nice” to be linked with the vacant Aberdeen job, but insists his sole focus is on St Mirren’s Scottish Premiership trip to Livingston on Tuesday.
Aberdeen are searching for a new manager after they sacked Jimmy Thelin on Sunday, following a five-match winless run that leaves them eighth in Scotland’s top flight.
Robinson, 51, has guided St Mirren to three consecutive top-six finishes in the Premiership and beat Celtic at Hampden in December to win the Premier Sports Cup, their first major trophy since 2013.
He is the early favourite to replace Thelin at Pittodrie, but says he is totally used to speculation taking him away from Paisley.
“It doesn’t turn my head,” he said. “I’ve been linked with every job in Scotland, England, Ireland.
“I’ve been in the game a long, long time now, so you just get used to getting linked with stuff.
“I can’t control what people say. It’s nice that people think you should be linked with that there.
“I’ve got a big enough job to concentrate on Tuesday night than concentrating on anybody else and what you also have to remember is somebody’s lost their job, which is horrible.
“It’s a horrible industry. It’s certainly not for me to talk about anybody else’s job.”
Robinson says in his younger years he would allow links to go to his head, but again stressed the need to stay focused on the job at hand with St Mirren.
The former Northern Ireland midfielder had spells managing Oldham, Motherwell and Morecambe before taking the St Mirren job in February 2022.
“Yes, we’ve done well, we’ve done well at Motherwell as well, but I can’t control what people think,” he said. “I can only concentrate on what’s right in front of me and that’s St Mirren.
“At that stage, I probably got a little bit excited and thought, ‘I’m really good and people want me’, but I was a very young manager then. I’ve got 400-odd games under my belt now.
“There’s a lot of talk, there’s a lot of social media now that runs the world and fortunately, I’m not part of that. I don’t look at that, I don’t see that.
“As soon as you take your eye off the ball, what’s in front of you, the game gets very complicated and I’m certainly not complicating the job. We need to do basics well here and that’s my main focus.”
Despite being a fixture in the top-half in the past three seasons, St Mirren are 10th in the current campaign, five points above Kilmarnock in the relegation play-off spot.
“At the minute, we’re in a relegation battle,” Robinson said. “If we win our two games in hand, you’re on the verge of the top six again and that’s how tight this league is.
“So what can we achieve? The biggest thing that has to happen in this football club is staying in this division. People get carried away with what we’ve done and how we’ve done it, but that doesn’t change the fact that success is to stay in this division.
“So I certainly won’t be looking beyond that at this moment in time.”
