Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson wants his side to be ruthless in the final third as he faces up to the challenge of overcoming Tommy Wright’s St Johnstone.

The pair are among the favourites to succeed Michael O’Neill as Northern Ireland manager next year and have been neck and neck in the Ladbrokes Premiership over the past two seasons, sharing seventh and eighth spot between them.

Saints arrive at Fir Park bottom of the league but level on points with three other teams after taking seven points from four matches and Robinson knows his side will need to be clinical if they are to bounce back from defeats at Celtic and Hibernian to consolidate their place in the top four.

On facing Wright, Robinson said: “It’s always difficult. Tommy’s record speaks for itself over the years, what he has done with St Johnstone. He has massively over-achieved.

“I think he has signed some very good players, I think they have a good squad on paper and he will be looking to turn that into results, but hopefully that won’t start on Saturday.

“Tommy always has them well organised. I don’t think their league position suggests how they have played at times.

“It is so tight down there, there is very little difference between bottom and sixth.

“I think it will be a hard game and they will sit in at times, so again we are going to have to break teams down.

“But our boys have to take that as a compliment. People didn’t used to come to Motherwell and sit in. They do now, they try and hit us on the counter-attack. That’s something we have to be aware of because St Johnstone have pace up top with their front three and they are dangerous.”

Robinson, whose side have won 13 games at Fir Park in 2019, added: “We are a team that has to be patient, we don’t have a massive target man that we can launch balls up to.

“It’s not what we want to do, we want to be patient and break teams down. It’s that quality in the final third and getting that consistency from our front players and helping them with their decision-making.That’s the key to it, the decisions in the final third.

“If you watched Celtic and Rangers this week, both terrific results. It doesn’t matter how much possession you have, their forward players are the key to them winning football matches.

“That’s what we have to bring, more ruthlessness and [better] decision-making in the final third.”

Wright will not be travelling to Fir Park with any sense of fear or inferiority even though his side face a team eight places above them as his men are beginning to emerge from a difficult start to the season and are looking to avenge a 1-0 home defeat by the Lanarkshire side.

“I don’t think there is much between the two teams,” Wright said. “They have started really well but the game we played here we should have won. We missed a penalty, both teams missed two sitters of the year and [Mark] Gillespie makes a great save in the last minute from Stevie May. We created more than they did in what was a pretty poor game.

“They were on a great run and have had a couple of defeats so it’s a tough game but we are not going there with any fear. We know we are every bit as good as Motherwell on our day.”

Wright added: “I know we are bottom but I try not to look at it. There’s six teams with three or four points between us all, and four teams on the same number of points.

“Yes it’s not nice when you look at the table and see you are bottom, but we have come off the back of a bad run and are starting to pick up points. We have seven points from four games, which is pretty good, particularly coming off the run we were on.

“We have to just focus on getting off the bottom of the table but we do realise it looks like we are in a mini-league with six teams and the team at the top is only three points ahead of us.”