Stephen Craigan believes that Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson has brought out the best in the Fir Park side by instilling a fear factor in the dressing room.
Motherwell have been the surprise package this season so far after being widely tipped to be fighting for their lives at the wrong end of the table.
From their current vantage point of fourth, Robinson’s side will look to topple Rangers this weekend in the semi-final of the League Cup and it is the Motherwell manager’s mix of charisma, energy and unpredictability that Craigan attributes to the turn-around in fortunes.
“The manager’s got an ‘edge’,” said the BT Sports pundit and Motherwell under-20 coach. “You could say that. He’s fiery and he’s strong-willed. Maybe that’s a Northern Irish thing. “He knows what he wants. If people are in the way then he’ll either move you or go through you to get what he wants. If it’s not a fear factor as such, then it’s definitely something like it. The captain, Carl McHugh, said the same.
“No-one is undroppable. If he has to drop someone or take them off then he’ll do it. The players don’t complain. They just get on with it.
“He’s ruthless.”
And part of that approach comes, Craigan believes, from sobering injury issues as a young player.
“Stephen, as a boy, was one of the hottest things to come out of Northern Ireland,” he said. “He could have gone to Liverpool, Manchester United or anyone he wanted. He was a superstar but had a bad injury he had to come back from. I think he gained a lot of resilience from that.
“He realised nothing’s handed to you. He doesn’t like players to have it easy. He wants it to be a profession, to be the best that they can be. He wouldn’t be frightened to make a sub after 10 minutes or take three people off at half-time. The players know that.
“He’s got a good squad, a more in-depth one than he maybe anticipated. He said it’s not just the starting eleven. It’s the subs and the guys on the edge that drive training. They have to put pressure on the guys in the team and you don’t always get that.
“He has that demand on everyone.”
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