Stephen Robinson slammed his Motherwell players for having “no bite” without Allan Campbell.
The Steelmen crashed out of the Betfred Cup at the hands of St Johnstone, and the Fir Park gaffer was scathing in his verdict of the game.
The fuming boss blasted his side for costly errors for both goals and says they must be stronger without star man Campbell.
The Scotland under-21 starlet was missing for the second week in a row while self-isolating after international duty.
“We got what we deserved,” he said. “I thought throughout they were sharper than us and they looked hungry, which isn’t something I normally say about any of my teams.
“It was two ridiculous piece defending for the goals. We talk about playing forward and being positive and we told them to play it forward at half-time, make it three v three with their system and we go backwards, but we are negative and get punished.
“The second one is just poor communication and we get exposed against the quickest player on the park.
“I thought we looked fluffy and didn’t look as hungry as them to every second ball.
“We have lots of potentially good players and we just need a bit more determination and to do the dirty bit of football a bit better.
“They are not a big strong side but they have know-how. We want to have the perfect goal, the perfect passing sequence, but when you don’t do the simple things right you get beat.”
When asked about the absence of Campbell, he went on: “I said to them afterwards, do we miss Allan that badly?
“I’ll answer that myself, yes we do, because without him we have no bite.
“We have nobody willing to put their body on the line and nobody who wants to go in and get hurt.
“There was four players who I told them were at the top of their game and the rest were miles off it.”
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