Anton Ferdinand: St Mirren must stick together in bid to beat relegation

Anton Ferdinand is the younger brother of former England defender Rio

Defender Anton Ferdinand hopes to use his experience of top-flight relegation battles in England to help St Mirren beat the drop.

The 33-year-old avoided demotion with both West Ham and Queens Park Rangers.

St Mirren are second-bottom of the Scottish Premiership, above Dundee on goal difference and four points behind Hamilton Academical.

"I have never been relegated and I'd like to keep that on my CV," said Ferdinand.

The Englishman's first flirtation with the drop came in 2007, towards the end of his time with his first club West Ham.

"We had to go to Manchester United at Old Trafford and win to stay up and we did that," he explained of a game in which Carlos Tevez scored the only goal against the champions.

"We were in the bottom three round Christmas but galvanised ourselves, had talks in our changing room, and anyone who wasn't on the same page as the senior boys were no longer involved.

"I'm not saying we drastically need to do stuff like that, but that's what happened at West Ham, and it boded well for us and we ended up staying up.

"Same at QPR, we stayed up on the last day of the season in that famous Man City game when they won the league."

That escape in 2012 came despite the 3-2 defeat inflicted by Sergio Aguero's injury-time winner.

"I will draw on experiences from that and I've said to the guys 'we've got to keep plugging away, we've got to stick together'," said Ferdinand.

"The main thing is our dressing room has to stay committed to the cause, which is staying in this league and that's what we're going to do."