Stephen Robinson, fresh from signing a new contract, talks about the job of being boss, transfer targets and taking on tricky Championship opposition on Friday night.
Motherwell host Greenock Morton in the second match of the Betfred Cup group stage, with both teams having won their opening fixtures.
On signing a new contract
” I think it was always going to get sorted out. We’ve had a busy summer.A lot of things [have] been happening. So it’s good.
“I’m very happy to commit my future It’s a fantastic football club. People have been very good to me.It’s worked well and I still see us moving
forward and developing.
“We’ve got to cup finals. We’ve developed a lot of young playersFinancially we’ve brought a lot of money into the football club that has put us on a steady footing.We are looking to keep doing that.
“On the pitch is my main concentration to try keep moving us forward, keep developing our young players and bring in more exciting players to sell.
“There’s lot of issues you’ve got to deal with as a manager. As I say, this is a football club that people do things together. I’ve got total support from the board. The fans have been terrific with me.It does make life easier when that’s the case.
“The model of the football club is to develop young players and sell them. And to make sure we keep trying to bring in good value players that we can create assets from. The football club exists on selling players. We don’t have a massive owner. We are fan-owned. And it has to be that case.
“It’s frustrating at times because you think you’ve built a really good side and then it gets broken up. This is probably the third squad we’ve put together again with eight or nine players. It’s a challenge. It’s one that I very much enjoy. And there are no surprises. We know that’s going to happen.
“Obviously within our coaching staff and playing staff we bring in, we’ve aspirations of getting into that top six and pushing on and still trying to play the football we played in the last six months of the season.”
On transfer targets
“We’ve got to a stage now where it has to be a starter we bring in.We don’t want a squad player.
“We don’t want the same as what we’ve got. It has to be somebody who is going to be a starter who is going to be better than what we’ve got.
“We’ve built our squad. We are happy with our squad. Now we are just looking maybe for that final bit of the jigsaw.
“If it doesn’t come, I’m more than happy with what we’ve done.”
On facing Greenock Morton
“I think we always had that gameplan against Queen of the South, that we would bring the two boys on.
“When you bring the boys up from England, they are behind. It’s getting that right balance between giving them the game time and making sure they don’t get injured. That’s the difficult one for us.
“We have got some decent players, we’ve got some very good young players who are on the verge of things. James Scott has been starting. David Devine, Adam Livingstone, Jamie Semple who started as well.
“[That is] as well as the wide players we’ve got. Ilic has come in, he’s only been in the club a few days. He will get better and better.
“Casper Sloth, we’ve given some time off for family reasons. I think once we get him going, over a period of time he will be a good asset as well.”