WELL BOSS BACKS INJURY-HIT SQUAD TO FIND A WAY TO WIN

Motherwell manager Graham Alexander backed his players to be adaptable after ruling Jordan Roberts out for the season ahead of their Scottish Cup quarter-final with Hibernian. Roberts, left, scored one and set up the other as Motherwell won 2-0 on their previous visit to Easter Road but a knee injury has ended his loan spell from Hearts.

The man who set up Roberts' goal, Tony Watt, is also out along with fellow forwards Harry Smith and Sherwin Seedorf, so Alexander may have to tweak his tactics as he bids to guide his team into the semi-finals.

On the previous win over Hibs, Alexander said: "It's all about feeling good about yourself, and we felt good about ourselves after that game because we went to an extremely hard venue against a very good team and won there for the first time in a lot of attempts and years.

"It does build confidence, but we always balance that out with what won us the game there doesn't win us the game tomorrow. There will be different players playing. Tony Watt and Jordan Roberts played that day and we haven't got them at the moment. Jordan won't be back for us, his injury has taken him out for the foreseeable. I don't know the full extent of his injury, it isn't a major one but he is certainly going to miss the rest of the season."

Amid the shortage of forwards, Alexander switched from a 4-3-3 formation to a 3-5-2 for Wednesday's Lanarkshire derby victory.

"We have to change the team, we have to find different ways of winning," he said. "We changed the other day to beat Hamilton and we have to look at what we do to win this particular game.”