St Mirren boss Robinson proud of Buddies despite Celtic Scottish Cup exit

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Stephen Robinson yesterday saluted his battling Buddies in the wake of their Scottish Cup exit at the hands of Celtic.Goals from Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda earned the Hoops a 2-0 win at the SMiSA and a quarter-final tie at home to Livingston.Saints carved out enough good chances to stay in the game — with Alex Gogic hitting the bar and forcing keeper Joe Hart into a great save in the first half.

And while Celtic’s potency in attack ultimately proved to be the difference in the tie, Robinson admitted he couldn’t have asked for more from his men.“I think first and foremost the level of performance is what we asked for,” said the Saints gaffer.“The fact it was so close and we pushed them that far despite the disparity in resources is huge.“But the disparity in performance between the two teams wasn’t that great.

The difference was the clinical edge that they had over us.“We told them not to wait to see what Celtic were going to do, we know they are a good side — step forward and press them.“I don’t think there are many teams that press Celtic the way we did, we won the ball back on numerous occasions.“Ultimately, they’ve had two chances and taken both of them and that’s the difference between the sides.

The level of player that can do that and the clinical manner that we can’t afford.“As a group of 14 or 15 players or whatever it was that came onto the pitch in the end, they gave absolutely everything and I thought they showed a great amount of quality on a difficult surface again.“We now have to take that into the remaining league games and use that as a real positive.”Renfrewshire Live, the new free app dedicated to bringing you around the clock breaking news, is now available to download.Powered by the Paisley