CURSE OF THE LEFT BACK
Robbo faces crisis after Donnelly KO
STEPHEN ROBINSON says the “curse of the left-back” has left Motherwell an injury away from a defensive crisis after Liam Donnelly joined the crock list.
Donnelly is facing two months out with a knee problem picked up while playing left-back in training.
And he joins Nathan McGinley, Jake Carroll and Charles Dunne on the sidelines just two weeks into the campaign.
Motherwell are still looking for their first points of the season when Livingston come calling tonight.
Robinson is set to delve back into the transfer market for reinforcements but it won’t come soon enough for tonight’s battle with fellow-strugglers Livi.
The Well boss said: “It’s not great. Liam is going to be out for two months with a knee injury. The curse of the left-back strikes again – he only played there for 20 minutes in training and that’s what happened.
“We’re actively looking to get a defender in. We’re an injury away from being really struggling in the back four. Nathan will be out a minimum four weeks. Jake won’t be back until the end of October. But when you have a boy of his quality coming back you can’t spend the budget to get someone in of equal quality. We’ll deal with it.”
Robinson insists Well are paying for their success after failing to break down stubborn opposition as they slumped to defeats against Ross County and Dundee United.
He said: “I don’t think there’s a whole lot wrong. People come here now with a massive amount of respect and sit behind the ball and try to hit us on the counter attack.
“There’s a lot of good stuff but how do we bridge the gap? We don’t have £30million strikers up top and wide players like Celtic and Rangers do.
“If teams come and sit in against us because they have a lot of respect then, if we score the first goal and they have to come out, that makes the game a lot easier. If we don’t it’s difficult to break teams down.”
Robinson has told his stars to shelve thoughts of their Euro adventure until they have Premiership points on the board.
The Northern Irishman has a potential clash with Mick McDermott’s Glentoran from his homeland later this month.
But he said: “I text Mick but we’re concentrating on Wednesday and Saturday first and will hopefully be in a better place come the end of August.”