IT’S seems Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson is coming up against an embattled adversary in the opposite dugout just about every week at present
With the exception perhaps of the Ross County duo last weekend, Robinson has gone into games against under-pressure gaffers in Paul Heckingbottom of Hibernian, Craig Levein at Hearts and now, this afternoon, against Tommy Wright of St Johnstone.
In the cases of Heckingbottom and Levein, his Motherwell side piled on the misery by claiming the three points, and despite his good relationship with fellow Northern Irishman Wright, he is hoping for more of the same at McDiarmid Park.
But he is sure it won’t be long before Wright has dragged the Saints off the bottom of the table and has them going in the right direction once more.
READ MORE: Crisis...what crisis? Hearts have managed to turn around their season
“It’s so early on in the league that I don’t think Tommy will be paying too much attention to the table at the moment,” Robinson said. “We aren’t, it doesn’t matter too much right now where you are.
“I think Tommy has a strong squad, I think he’s made some shrewd signings and the wide players can win games on their own.
“Drey Wright is coming back to fitness, Murray Davidson is a boy who probably epitomises St Johnstone with his strength and his character, so make no mistake, we are well aware of their strengths.
“We’ll have to be at the top of our game, you can’t take anything for granted, and I’m sure Tommy will start picking up points. We just have to make sure that it doesn’t start against us.
“That’s the problem when you’ve been as successful as St Johnstone have, every single manager in the league is three games from a crisis mind you.
“I’m sure that Tommy knows exactly what he’s doing, and it’s a matter of time before they start picking up results.
“It’s mad now. Management is a very difficult job, so I feel for them all. I’ve had it myself, and what you have to do is remain focused.
“Football turns around so quickly, and the people who run these football clubs are bright enough to know that there shouldn’t be kneejerk reactions.
READ MORE: Rangers boss Steven Gerrard determined to avoid more damaging results against Aberdeen
“We’re lucky here where we have that, and people who know the parameters we work under, what can be expected and what can be achieved.
“I don’t think any club has had a kneejerk reaction so far this season in Scotland, and long may that continue.
“It has been proven that the longer people get, then the more chance of success.”
Motherwell’s own season has got off to a very decent start, with the Steelmen sitting fourth. The only negative is that it could have been even better had they not conspired to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against County last week in a slack last 20 minutes at Fir Park.
“That was the biggest disappointment from last week,” said Robinson.
“With 20 minutes to go we looked as though we were going second, albeit probably for only 24 hours.
“It was a setback, but you have to credit Ross Stewart as well, it was an incredible header that he scored.
“You always look at fault from yourselves. We took a really quick throw-in which was naïve, then we didn’t contain them on the half-way line when there was no danger, but the boy’s finish was incredible.
“It was a brilliant finish, but we’ll pick ourselves up and go again.”
Motherwell new-boy Mark O’Hara came on with his side 1-0 to the good last weekend only to be unable to prevent their slide to a 2-1 defeat, but the midfielder is hoping they can take the lessons from that experience into today’s match, and in particular, try to develop a ruthless streak.
READ MORE: Are Livingston the Premiership's dirtiest team?
“It was a setback, but we watched the game back and we had plenty of positives to take and hopefully it was a blip,” O’Hara said.
“It was disappointing to lose two goals in the last 15 minutes and we watched how we could have prevented it. We had chances to kill the game earlier, so we have to be more ruthless.
“I have played at St Johnstone a few times and it is one of the toughest grounds to go to in the league. They have had great success over the years, so we know it won’t be an easy game.”
Robinson will be without defender Charles Dunne, who will be out until after Christmas with a groin injury, and youngster David Devine, who has fractured his cheekbone.
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 here