Robbo backs forwards to fill Moult void

Motherwell suffered a fourth consecutive defeat but manager Stephen Robinson took plenty of encouragement as he adjusts to life without Louis Moult, missing through injury.

Jamie MacDonald made good saves from Craig Tanner and Alex Fisher before substitute George Newell came close on his return from a foot injury.

The boss said:“As much as Louis has scored a lot of goals, I’m sure he would be the first to admit we have created a heck of a lot of chances for him.

“You don’t score goals on your own.

“We create a lot of chances, and our build-up play was excellent. There is very little I can say was wrong with the performance.

“We got punished for one mistake.

“Young George Newell came on, who is a real hope for me for the future, he really reminds me of Louis.

“But he has trained three days in 11 weeks.

“We threw him on and he nearly scored as well. But if we keep producing performances like that, we will turn the corner again.

“Who knows what would have happened had Louis been playing.

“What I do know is that he scores goals and we do have to replace him.

“We certainly won’t be able to spend £500,000 to replace him as our whole squad cost £10,000 combined.

“Perhaps Louis would have scored, but the positive for me is that people are getting into areas to score.”

Manager Robinson also defended young goalkeeper Russell Griffiths after he failed to deal with a Chris Burke corner which allowed Scott Boyd to score Killie’s winner.

The manager had new Greek signing Gennadios Xenodochov, captured pre-match on a shortterm deal as cover with Trevor Carson injured, on the bench.

But Robinson said: “Russell has to be strong from the cross, but he makes a great save at the end to make up for it.

“It’s one of those things. He’s a young goalie, he needs to learn.

“We win together and we lose together.

“We will put an arm around him, but we need to remember he didn’t do an awful lot wrong.”

Robinson’s job now is to pick his team up for the vital home match against Neil McCann’s Dundee on Saturday.