St Mirren playmaker Paul McGowan insists his mind is at ease, despite the possibility of a jail sentence hanging over him.

The 26-year-old will be sentenced at Airdrie Sheriff Court next month after he pleaded guilty to attacking two police officers.

McGowan appeared at a hearing on December 16 to admit kicking Police Constable Edward Gilmartin on the body and repeatedly kicking Sergeant Tony Fitzpatrick on the body during an incident in his hometown of Airdrie and then later at Coatbridge Police Office on August 11.

He will discover his fate when he returns to court on January 8, but the Saints forward insists he does not fear a severe punishment.

The former Celtic youngster said: "It's been a difficult few weeks for me but the club have helped me and it will all get sorted soon.

"But my mind is at ease a wee bit and hopefully it will go all right.

"Coming into training has been a release for me. Apart from football, I've got nothing on my mind when I'm here. It's weird, I just don't worry about anything when I am playing football.

"More will come out in a couple of weeks, but I can't really say more at this stage - I'm not allowed to.

"But I'm not too worried. I sort of know what will happen so I'm not stressing out too much."

However, the Buddies player is concerned by his side's fluctuating results.

Danny Lennon's side started last week miserably by losing 3-0 to Motherwell before bouncing back to put high-flying Dundee United to the sword with a ruthless 4-1 win.

But they failed to continue that fine form and were held to a 1-1 draw at home by the Scottish Premiership's bottom club Hearts.

With Kilmarnock next up on January 2, McGowan said: "It is frustrating how our results seem to go up and down, especially because I felt we did enough to win the game against Hearts in the first half.

"We had enough chances to kill them off, but the longer it stayed 1-0, the more confident Hearts got and they scored with a great strike. But we were bitterly disappointed with the result.

"We played poorly at Motherwell, but were then really good against United. The one thing we are missing from our game is consistency.

"If we could add that to our make-up then who knows how good we could be. It must drive the manager and the fans crazy. But there's never a dull moment with this side.

"It's a roller-coaster but if we can work hard on getting results week in, week out, then the top six may not be out of our grasp just yet."

Lennon has held talks with keeper Marion Kello this week as he seeks to extend Slovakian's short-term deal and McGowan says the boss should hand the former Hearts number one a bumper deal.

He said: "Marion has been outstanding for us. He comes for some amount of crosses and it must be a treat for the back four knowing he will come and take everything.

"We lost Craig Samson last year, but Marion has come in and steadied the ship. It would be daft for St Mirren not to push the boat out and make sure we keep him because he is top class."