Robinson says St Mirren deserve to be criticised for loss

Stephen Robinson admitted his lacklustre St Mirren side deserve all the criticism that comes their way following their shock Viaplay Cup group-stage defeat at the hands of League One side Montrose.

Buddies fans turned on players and management of the cinch Premiership side at Links Park as Rory McAllister scored the only goal of the game for the part-time hosts just before the hour.

“Not good enough,” manager Robinson told St Mirren TV. “No matter what happens, whether it’s a sticky pitch or a pre-season game, whatever reasons we put out, you don’t lose the game.

“You stay in the game in and get some sort of luck at the end of it but we didn’t start performing until the last 15-20 minutes.

“We deserve the criticism that will come our way, there’s no hiding from that.

“We should be good enough to come to a League One side and win comfortably and we didn’t so as a collective, we have to do a lot of hard work to make sure that changes.

“We’re going to get criticised. There was plenty of it (criticism) from behind me and deservedly so. It wasn’t acceptable. We can’t have eight players not at the top of their game.”

Robinson was frustrated that his team did not implement the gameplan as he vowed to ensure a strong response in their remaining three Viaplay Cup group matches.

“We set out to move the ball quickly, put balls in the box and play in behind them and we didn’t do that at all,” he said. “I have to take the blame on that, I set them up.

“Obviously that instruction didn’t get across well enough so that has to be my fault.

“We’ll be looking for maximum points from our last three games but we should be getting maximum points today. It’s up to me to pick the boys up and make sure they come back firing.

“We’ll bounce back from it and we won’t accept that the cup is over for us, which it obviously isn’t.”