ST Mirren striker Lawrence Shankland insists his development is better served in Paisley rather than on the bench at Aberdeen, despite Saints' recent poor recent form.

The striker had a successful loan spell at St Mirren last season and manager Alex Rae brought him back after Shankland was told by Dons gaffer Derek McInnes that he wasn't likely to get first team football at Pittodrie this term.

Shankland gave up training with Aberdeen's wealth of attacking talent such as Adam Rooney, Jonny Hayes and Niall McGinn. However he is adamant that anything he could learn from them will be trumped by the experience he will gain from playing in the Championship with Saints.

He said: "I went up to Aberdeen and did pre-season as best as I could, I played in a couple of games and scored a couple of goals. I thought I could maybe get a chance but when the gaffer spoke to me he said he had brought in some quality strikers and I might not get the opportunities that I would want so it might be better for me to go out and get a regular game.

"I spoke to the gaffer (Alex Rae) before I left in the summer and he said if he would be interested in taking me back.

"I need to be on the pitch, even when I'm having bad games I'm learning from them. The mistakes I make I'll look to improve on in the next game, the more I'm out on the pitch the better. I don't think watching games is going to be the best for anyone."

Shankland came off the bench to net the winner for St Mirren against Albion Rovers on Saturday to secure progress in the Irn-Bru Cup.

After a poor run of form and an indifferent performance at Cliftonhill, Shankland conceded it was a relief to be in the next round.

He said: "It's an important win for us, we're into the next round. It probably isn't the way we wanted the game to pan out in the end but we have to take the positives.

"We can't take games like this for granted, Albion Rovers played really well and made it hard for us. They went ahead and we had to get ourselves back in the game. It was a relief in the end but we're happy to be through."