St Mirren left short with Alex Greive facing 'lengthy' spell out injured

St Mirren have been left short of attacking options ahead of their game with Motherwell with Alex Greive the latest injury to hit Stephen Robinson’s squad.

The New Zealand international striker is a lengthy spell out leaving Robinson hoping that new recruit Tony Watt can get up to speed quicker than initially planned.

The Saints travel to Fir Park for the game against the Premiership strugglers on Wednesday with caretaker manager Stuart Kettlewell in charge following Steven Hammell’s dismissal at the weekend.

But Robinson admits they are now down to the bare bones in attack for the 7.45pm kick-off.

He said: “We have scan results back and unfortunately we are fearing that it’s going to be a length of time with Alex. It leaves us very short with only two first team centre forwards.

“We’ll just have to get on with it and see how we go, we need Tony (Watt) to get a bit more fitness and game time and that will have to be bit more rushed now with Alex’s injury.

“We have lost four strikers now, including the two that left in January, and that always seems to be the way that they come in twos and threes when you’ve got a small squad.

“I’ve worked with Tony, I know what he is capable of when he is fully fit and flying and we are getting there, he has trained really well over the last ten days so he’s not too far away and I’m sure he will play an important part in the second half of the season.”

Despite a poor run of recent results for Motherwell, Robinson is convinced they will face a tough game and urged his players to show the same level as at the weekend when they took the game to Celtic and matched the Scottish champions for large parts of the game.

He said: “My thoughts are solely with St Mirren because we have to produce the same level of performance that we reached at Celtic Park and then we don’t have anything to fear from anybody.

“We know what we are going to face with Motherwell, they’ve got injuries, they have got some talented boys as well so we will have to have the same level of commitment and the same level of quality that we showed against Celtic and try and take the game to them.”