All Well and good again for Robinson

Posted Sunday, November 25, 2018 by PA

Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson was a proud manager after watching his players respond superbly to their 7-1 Ladbrokes Premiership drubbing at Ibrox.

Robinson’s men bounced back well with a 3-0 win over Aberdeen – courtesy of two goals from Danny Johnson and one from David Turnbull – and there was no disguising his delight afterwards.

He said: ‘It was a good performance and good reaction to what happened a couple of weeks ago at Ibrox.

“It takes strong characters and I was very impressed with them today.

“We set about our task and showed great qualities, with some super, super performances from the young players and the more experienced ones.”

Not surprisingly the Fir Park boss had special praise for Johnson, who came in for his first start since mid-September and grabbed the opportunity with a fine double which ultimately earned his side their third win in four games.

Robinson said: “We knew what Danny was when we brought him to the club but coming from the lower levels we needed to see if he can score goals at this level.

“We don’t have the luxury of buying nine million pound players, we have to develop them.

“We also need players to buy into that and Danny has done that. He has worked hard and that was his best performance – but he can still improve.”

Conversely, Derek McInnes has a week to get a response from his players after a really poor performance.

The Dons boss had warned his players to only focus on their visit to Fir Park and not be distracted by the forthcoming Betfred Cup final meeting with Celtic.

However, his warning fell on deaf ears as Aberdeen slumped to a miserable defeat ahead of next Sunday’s Hampden showpiece.

McInnes is convinced his players were not distracted but admitted their performance was poor.

He said: “It was an awful performance, in total contrast of late where we’ve been getting results, shown resilience and keeping clean sheets.

“Today we were well beaten all over the pitch, although two of the goals were calamitous from our point of view.

“We had a couple of flurries in the first half and didn’t hit the target. We were looking for a response at half-time but even our subs didn’t change the dynamics of the game.

“Motherwell were the better team and deserved their win but we didn’t expect to drop to that level of performance – and we have a lot of work to do before the cup final.

“I’m not worried because we are a good team to get to the final – but we were not a good team today.

“Stephen Robinson and his team took a right sore one a couple of weeks ago at Ibrox but he got a real response today – so we will be looking for the same kind of reaction from our players next week.”