St Mirren chief executive and club legend Tony Fitzpatrick has issued a rallying cry for everyone with an attachment to the club to unite and get them through their horror start to the season.

Defeat to Queen of the South on Saturday left the Buddies rock-bottom of the Championship and without a win in their five league games so far this term.

Despite understanding that fans will be frustrated at their poor start to the campaign, Fitzpatrick says that now is not the time for panic or knee-jerk reactions.

And he has backed manager Alex Rae and his team to turn things around and haul the Saints up the league table.

“We’ve got to be in it together,” Fitzpatrick said. “This will pass.

“Alex Rae is a brilliant manager and David Farrell is a great assistant. These guys know the game and I don’t care who you are, everyone goes through a wee spell where things don’t go for you.

“I know the frustrations of the fans, and we all feel frustrated at the start we’ve had, no more so than Alex, Faz and the players.

“No disrespect to anyone who was here last year though, but Alex and Faz came in and you saw the job they done, because we were really sleepwalking into League One at the time.

“There was a real lack of confidence and Alex came in and did a magnificent job. He had a tremendous win-rate.

“This club needs stability, that’s the message I would put out.

“From the manager to the directors, we’re all sure we will come through this wee rough patch. It’s a great challenge for us all and I look upon it as just that.

“This is when you see people standing up as leaders, and Alex is a real leader of men, so even with us being bottom of the league I’m still very, very positive, because I know that in a month it could all have changed.”

Despite his positivity, Fitzpatrick acknowledged that he is surprised at how the season has gone so far considering the squad of players that have been assembled in Paisley.

When he looks at the people within the dressing room though, and in particular the wealth of experience in the squad, he is steadfast in his belief that things will soon start to turn for his beloved club.

“At the start of the season the fans would have looked at the squad and saw the Suttons and the Clarksons and all these boys coming in,” he said.

“That brings with it an expectation, but it’s very early doors. I genuinely do still believe in this team. They just need a victory, and it will kick-start these boys.

“There’s a wee lack of confidence, but there is no panic here. They will come good, there’s no doubt they will come good.

“We’ve got great experience and these boys could play in the Premiership, that’s the standard of these boys.

“I watch the games, I go up to the training ground, and these are the types of boys you want around your young players and you want in hard times.

“They have great attitudes and they’ve been through all of this. They’ve had the highs in football, but they’ve also fought down at the bottom of leagues and they know it will turn.

“When you roll these names off the tongue like Jamie Langfield, Andy Webster, Gary Irvine, Gary MacKenzie, Rocco Quinn, John Sutton and David Clarkson, then you realise there’s nothing to worry about here.

“You then complement that with the young guys like Stephen Mallan, Lewis Morgan, Jason Naismith and Jack Baird.

“It would be different if we were sitting bottom of the league and were thinking that we had to overhaul the entire team, but that’s not the case.”