Stephen Robinson promises to go back to basics with Motherwell in the New Year
Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson promised a more straightforward style of football after a disappointing December ended with a 3-1 derby defeat to Hamilton at Fir Park.
Well ended the month with one point from seven Ladbrokes Premiership games after struggling to deal with injuries to the likes of Louis Moult, Chris Cadden, Trevor Carson, Elliott Frear and Peter Hartley.
Charles Dunne and the suspended Carl McHugh were also missing on Saturday and Motherwell suffered badly from the loss of Allan Campbell to a dead leg late in the first half, while Hartley will wish he had not played through a knock.
The defender conceded a penalty for handball to allow Dougie Imrie to cancel out Craig Tanner's early opener just before the break, and his sliced clearance enabled Rakish Bingham to run through for Hamilton's second before Greg Docherty sealed the win.
Hartley lost control after full-time when he barged Imrie to the ground and he will miss the William Hill Scottish Cup meeting between the teams on January 20 after receiving a post-match red card.
The likes of Gael Bigirimana and Tanner may also fear for their places after Robinson decided to go back to the style that earned them some impressive results before December.
`The run of results is disappointing, but the same group of boys were on a super run, and we have to get back to doing what we were doing, the shape we were playing and the style of football,' he said.
`We've had to put more perceived footballers into the team due to injuries, and it shows that we're not quite there. We just become ordinary then, instead of a top-six side. We have to get back to doing the basics well again.'
Robinson will also seek attacking reinforcements to replace Moult, who said his farewells before making a £500,000 move to Preston.
`We had enough chances and enough ownership of the game, but in the second half we were really poor,' said the manager.
`Our decision-making was poor, our intensity was poor, and no matter how many balls went into the box we didn't look like we were going to score because we didn't anticipate things.
`I'm well aware of what we need to do, and I'll get busy doing that. There are people playing for their futures but I will freshen things up and make sure we get people in at the top end of the pitch.'
Moult had earned 10-man Motherwell an unlikely point in the corresponding fixture a year earlier and Accies boss Martin Canning admitted his side's victory would make a huge difference to their winter break.
I remember last season we lost a last-second goal when Louis Moult scored,' he said.It felt like I had been filleted.
`You go away and you can't stop thinking about football, you don't enjoy it. So the the boys can go away and enjoy it, use the break properly and come back fresh to hit the second half of the season hard.'