STEPHEN ROBINSON declared Motherwell fear nobody after blowing away Aberdeen on their way to a Hampden date with Rangers.
A Joe Lewis own goal, a Peter Hartley header and a Louis Moult thunderbolt obliterated Derek the Pittodrie club’s unbeaten domestic start to the campaign on a night of revelry in North Lanarkshire. From the off in this Betfred Cup quarter-final Motherwell were the better team, and their showing was rewarded with a semi-final meeting with Pedro Caixinha’s men on the weekend of October 20/21st.
For most of the teams in the last four draw, simply avoiding Brendan Rodgers’ rampant Celtic would have been the best-case scenario. However, when asked if he was pleased with the draw, Motherwell manager Robinson was understandably in a confident mood.
"Listen, all the sides in the semi-finals are decent teams. We don’t fear anyone at this moment in time," he said. "We will go there and enjoy the day but we are certainly not going to make the numbers up.
"I thought we deserved to get there with this display. In a way, Ryan Bowman set the tone in the first minute when he chased down the kick-off and we didn’t stop chasing all night. The players worked ever so hard and they deserved this result.
"This is the best result we have had since I came in. I thought the performance at Hibs was as good, but this obviously a great reward. Louis Moult did what we asked of him. His second goal epitomised everything about us. ‘There was a ball side down the channel by Liam Grimshaw and he never gave up on it. The class was shown in his finishing when he got there.
"Young Allan Campbell was also great again. There is improvement to come from him but he doesn’t look out of place in the first team."
Derek McInnes, his Aberdeen counterpart, was predictably not quite as chirpy.
In what was their first domestic defeat, his team simply couldn't handle Motherwell's energy and workrate. They also failed to deal with Louis Moult, who scored the last and provided the strike for Lewis' blunder on 13 minutes. It was poignant that it was Moult who would shine the brightest here given Aberdeen tried to sign him in the summer.
"The better team won," said the Aberdeen manager, who will bring his team back here on league duty this Sunday. "The first goal comes out of nothing but we should have dealt with it a lot better.
"I’m not going to criticise Joe too much as he been outstanding since he came here. He has been flawless. He could have done better with a couple of the goals but their front two were up for it from the start. We knew what to expect. They engage their strikers and are quick to support each other.
"A lot of their game is very simplistic but they got the job done tonight. My players wanted to win but the team with the greater intent and aggression deserved to go through. Between both boxes at times we played some decent stuff and we created a couple of chances but they defended better throughout and it made all the difference. It was a sore one for us and we will be looking for a response on Sunday.
"I know my players, they are honest and they work hard and they are hurting. They should be, it’s the quarter-finals of the cup. It’s out first defeat of the season and even though we knew what we were getting. Motherwell will do well this season and in Moult they had the best player on the park. He is in your face and makes the runs and he was the best player by a long way."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel