MOTHERWELL manager Stephen Robinson says that he will be looking to move some players out of the exit door at Fir Park in order to freshen up his squad in January.
The club revealed during the week that midfielder Andy Rose will be joining MLS side Vancouver Whitecaps in the winter transfer window, but as plans for that move were already afoot, it won’t free up any new funds for Robinson to spend.
Instead, he will have to move people on before he can set about strengthening his side, with his focus particularly on the wide areas of his team.
“Andy has been excellent for me, he’s a super boy,” said Robinson.
“We only really budgeted to have Andy until Christmas anyway, so it doesn’t free up any funds unfortunately to go and get anyone else in.
“The only way I’ll be able to bring more people in is by moving people out. We signed our players, some have worked, and some haven’t, and it’s up to me to be clever with our dealings in the transfer window and see what we can do.
“There are people we’ve got our eye on that we feel can add a little bit of pace and energy up top and in wide areas.
“I’m well aware we’re short of wide players. We’ve got Jake Hastie coming back from loan that has done very well at Alloa and they’ve done well for him, so that’s like signing a new player.
“We will freshen it up. If the possibility comes to get a couple of players out and a couple of players in to freshen the squad up, then we’ll take the opportunity to do that.”
Meanwhile, Robinson is expecting a physical battle against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park today, as he goes up against a manager in Tommy Wright that he has huge respect for.
“Tommy’s policy is to make sure they are solid and hard to beat, and the clean sheets they’ve had in six of their last seven games shows you how disciplined they are," he said.
“A lot of their success has come from being very hard to break down, and we know it’s going to be a tough game, a scrappy game.
“We’re going to have to fight and battle. I’ve not been at a game at St Johnstone where it’s been total football and you’ve been allowed to play, they don’t let you do that."
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