Motherwell interim-manager Stephen Robinson has revealed that he faces a full-blown injury crisis ahead of tomorrow's visit to Pittodrie.

The Fir Park defence has been decimated with the entire back three from last week's win over Kilmarnock struggling and right-back Richard Tait's campaign being brought to a premature end.

With Motherwell shipping seven goals at the venue only a few weeks ago, the absence of so many regulars has hardly helped Robinson's chances of claiming a second win during his brief tenure.

“Richard Tait will probably be out for the season now, he’s going to need an operation,” Robinson said. “We were trying to force him through one more game, but that’s something we have to worry about.

“Carl McHugh, Ben Heneghan and Zak Jules have trained sporadically this week, so they will all be late decisions which will dictate what we do. Louis Moult is suspended, so he misses out this week as well.

“That certainly gives us a bit of food for thought, but apart from that, everything is alright! That’s management though, you just have to deal with it.”

Robinson knows that he is being judged on his suitability for the permanent Motherwell position on the strength of what his team does on a Saturday, so revisiting a ground where they were recently humiliated, and with a makeshift defence to boot, may hardly be conducive to boosting his job prospects.

If he can somehow grind out a result in the Granite City to build on the impressive comeback win at Rugby Park last week though, he will naturally give the Motherwell board something to think about in regards to their appointment.

The signs are that a decision will be made by next midweek, but Robinson insists that all he can do is concentrate on preparing his players for the immediate task at hand.

“It has been a positive week,” he said. “A win lifts spirits in the camp and there’s been a lot of positivity about the place.

“We are most definitely going up [to Pittodrie] with a point to prove. The players first and foremost owe it to themselves to put in a performance and to the fans who travelled up there.

“They’ll go there and they will be prepared, and whatever happens, I have said to them all week that we will be demanding a performance.

“The result will take care of itself, but first and foremost the desire and attitude that we showed on Saturday is the basics of football, and that needs to be a constant every week.

“I think ultimately you get judged on what happens on the Saturday, so all the rest of it doesn’t really matter.

“We got off to a good start with a win. We were on a bad run and we got a victory. I’ll just get on with doing what I’m doing, managing the players and working on the pitch to make sure we are prepared for however long that might be.

“I haven’t gone chasing anybody to get answers and they haven’t come chasing me for my thoughts at this moment in time.

“What we’ve done is just got on with the job. I owed it to Motherwell Football Club for how good they’ve been with me over the last two years.

“I felt I owed it to the football club to try and put a bit of stability into it for the next two weeks, and ultimately other people will make the decision from there.

“Obviously last week can’t harm me. The first half we had a little bit of a lack of belief, and that comes from the run we were on.

“The result helps us, winning football matches helps confidence, and if you can continue to do that then it obviously puts you in the frame.”

After a bruising initial experience as a number one at Oldham earlier this season, where Robinson arrived to a squad with just three full-time players before being sacked in January, it is a wonder that he feels the urge to step back into the hotseat again, particularly at a club that is also in something of a state of flux.

He feels though that his experiences at Boundary Park have added a hard edge to him, and he displayed that ruthless streak last Saturday by withdrawing Keith Lasley and Stevie Hammell at half-time in order to turn the game in Motherwell’s favour.

“Obviously, there was a lot of problems at Oldham, but that’s modern-day management,” he said. “You have to deal with those problems and you learn from every experience within football.

“I definitely think I’m a lot stronger than what I was, and if you have to be ruthless you be ruthless, there’s no problem with that.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to win football matches and keep Motherwell in this division. If that means sacrificing players at half-time or sacrificing players after 20 minutes, then you do it. Sometimes you look at it and if it’s not quite working then I’m brave enough to make those decisions.

“The players have to accept that and I’ve said that all along. The only thing I’ll do to the players is not pick them.

“I’ll treat them properly, I’ll treat them with great respect, as long as they are giving me everything and giving Motherwell Football Club everything.”