Robinson vows to introduce more passing style at Motherwell
Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson vowed to stick by his plan of introducing a more passing style of football after a 2-1 home defeat to Ross County ended their cup hopes.
Last season's William Hill Scottish Cup runners-up were well beaten by the Championship leaders at Fir Park, their goal from a Jake Hastie header coming in stoppage time after Brian Graham had netted twice in eight minutes before the hour mark.
Robinson started a less-than-fully-fit Ross McCormack just off striker Danny Johnson and gave Gboly Ariyibi a debut on the opposite flank to Elliott Frear as he looks beyond the 3-5-2 formation he has favoured for most of his reign.
The Motherwell boss will look to get his side playing off a target man in the coming weeks with 18-year-old James Scott in the frame, but he will not go back to the same physical approach he preferred beforehand.
''We don't have the same players as last year,'' he said. ''We don't have Louis Moult, Craig Tanner, Cedric Kipre, Chris Cadden, Trevor Carson. So you can't play the same way.
Our front players haven't done it. They haven't been physical so there's no point playing a physical way. We have had to try and change it.
You can't wave a magic wand. So we have to be brave, as a manager you have to be brave. So I will take total responsibility on it.
When we pass the ball, we get criticism. When we put the ball in the box, you get criticism. But that's football and it's up to me to be brave and stick by what I believe.
I have to make sure I give us a pivot up front, I give us a target man up front that we can play off and get our wide players into the game. It won't become total football, we are not Man City.
We know what we've got in the building, we know what can make us win football matches and that's going to take a little period of time.''
County's win ensures they will have cup ties on consecutive weekends next month with the Irn-Bru Cup semi-final against East Fife or Bohemians to follow the fifth round.
But co-manager Stuart Kettlewell is happy to have the added interest on top of their promotion push.
''You can't pick and choose when you want to try and win games,'' he said. ''We went with the mindset to win the game.
We have been the same in every competition, the League Cup and Challenge Cup, I know a lot of people maybe don't take it seriously but we do.
We want to win every game.''