STEPHEN ROBINSON was pleased Motherwell dug deep to get back to winning ways and give themselves a timely boost in the race for a top six finish this term.
The Steelmen moved to within a point of Kilmarnock as Craig Tanner netted the only goal of the game to clinch a hard-fought win over Dundee.
It was far from Motherwell’s most eye-catching performance at Dens Park but boss Robinson took satisfaction from the way they hauled themselves over the line.
He said: “If you want to be a top six side, it was a really important win for us.
“We can play a lot better than that and our ball retention at times wasn’t good enough, but the resilience, organisation and character that the boys showed was excellent.
“Dundee had a lot of play, had a lot of play in front of us the same as we did last week, but they didn’t really hurt us.
“I thought our back five and Trevor were outstanding and Carl McHugh won us the game. Delighted with them.
“If I was a fan going back down the road having seen that kind of passion and commitment, throwing yourself in front of balls, winning headers, winning tackles, I would be absolutely delighted.
“It’s a funny game football, isn’t it? We played much better last week up until the final third.
“We created one chance and we took it and that is the difference between the games.
“Neil will be very disappointed I would imagine because they had large amounts of the game, like us last week. But goals win football matches, as we found out to our detriment and we are delighted to come away from here with three points.”
Tanner had scored in Motherwell’s two previous wins over Dundee and his first half strike proved to be the difference at Dens Park on Saturday.
Robinson reserved special praise for his defensive unit, however, as Neil McCann’s side were left empty handed in their battle to beat the Premiership drop.
He said: “We are a football club that is together from top to bottom. There are no big time Charlies, nobody above what we ask them to do.
“The easy thing in football is to do the simple things well. Work harder than the opposition and I thought we did that. We lacked a little bit of quality but I think they took a lot of pride and pleasure from their defensive performance.”
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