St Mirren transfer latest on Sule, Mallan and Reid as Craig McLeish sounds Premier Sports Cup defence battle cry

Pumped-up Craig McLeish believes St Mirren CAN repeat their Premier Sports Cup heroics as they start the defence of their trophy against Dumbarton this afternoon. The Buddies boss, who confirmed West Brom striker Eseosa Sule was close to a becoming his sixth summer signing as revealed by Record Sport, insists his players are ready to scrap to keep hold of their silverware. St Mirren take on Dumbarton at Cliftonhill with the Sons’ own park still undergoing work ahead of the new campaign. And McLeish , who could give fans a glimpse of new signings Jacob Chapman, Samuel Ramos, Ryan Carr and Chris Mochrie in Coatbridge, said there’s no nerves about being holders. He said: “It’s excitement. I’ve said that to the boys - we're going in as holders. We need to defend our trophy and we're ready to do that. “We need to get off to a good start, make sure we progress through the group and then make sure somebody's got to wrestle the trophy from you. “Don't give it up easily because it's ours to defend “There's a lot of boys that were involved in the final that are still here with us and we have to use those experiences. “There's no fear going into this, there's no nervousness about being the holders. “We have to go into it with full of confidence and full of belief that we've done it last year. “Why can you not go and do it again? Why can we not finish top six? Why can we not qualify for Europe? Why can we not go and be at the top end of the table challenging? “We have to aim at that, whether we fall short that's fine. But I'd rather that than we aim at surviving in the league and you fall short of that. Then you're in trouble. “So we have to have ambition, we have to have belief, we have to have confidence and it's down to us.” Henry Fieldson isn’t expected to play any part after sealing his move from Queen’s Park on Thursday. But McLeish is hopeful a deal for former Celtic kid Sule, 20, is close while trialists Stephen Mallan and Dylan Reid continue to train with the club. On Sule said: “Nothing is signed yet. It was getting close to the final stages but that's not going to be done in time for the game. He's one that we think really highly of. “Stephen and Dylan are still in at the moment. I spoke to the two of them just to update them about our situation and they both know that, unfortunately, their positions, they're not priority positions for us right now at the moment. “But we'd still like to spend time with them and see if there's anything we could do with them once our situation maybe changes a little bit with movement in and out of the club. “Just with budget restraints, we can't go and spend that type of money just now on non-priority positions. “I have to add to the forward line, we have to still look at left-sided centre-back. “So they both know the situation and now it's down to them whether they want to spend a little bit more time with us or they might both have other opportunities to explore and we have to respect that too.”