Robinson: Turnbull transfer fee can transform Motherwell

Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson believes that the transfer fee received for David Turnbull could transform the club – if it is invested in facilities to help develop the next young stars.

Turnbull completed a move to Celtic on Thursday with Motherwell receiving a club record fee in the region of £3m for the 21-year-old midfielder.

Robinson joked that he was frustrated at losing a key talent from his squad before explaining that he club would benefit hugely from Turnbull’s move.

“I could sit here and say I’m frustrated as a manager but nobody told me anything different when I took the job,” he said.

“We develop players. It’s the model of the football club and how the club can survive. We’ve all bought into that and we are a development club.

“We got a huge fee for David and we’re into another round in Europe so now we need to build on that.”

The Norther Irishman said he doesn’t expect to be able to go out and spend extra money to replace Turnbull in the squad but would recommend that the club use their windfall to make sure they can continue to produce players to sell on at huge profit.

“I’m not expecting any more in my playing budget,” he said.”What I want is the infrastructure developed. I want the training ground sorted out.

“I think that the club will support that because we do develop players. A better environment to do that has to be the goal.

“It can transform the club. We’re in precarious times at the moment and nobody knows when crowds are going to get back, though that’ll be sooner rather than later hopefully.

“The board run this football club prudently and they are very, very good at what they do. No money will be blown. We only get 4000 fans so it’s not sustainable to invest in the playing budget continually.

“What you have to do is invest in the infrastructure for the future, keep trying to defy the odds and finish higher up the league when you’re losing payers every year.

“That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Robinson had seen his side record their first win of the season with an emphatic 5-1 victory against Glentoran to progress to the second qualifying round of the Europa League.

He said: “We were under no illusions it would be a tough game, Glentoran battled really hard and were organised and hard to break down.

“I knew if we kept going, kept playing, kept our belief, we would break them down, our quality would show, and that’s what happened. Our quality shone through, five different scorers, and it could have been more.”

“It’s been coming, someone has been going to get it and unfortunately for Glentoran it was them in the closing stages. You could see the belief growing.

“We changed shape, we have been relying on strikers who maybe weren’t quite on form and maybe no end product in their game at this moment.

“We were putting pressure on them to do that with a 4-3-3 system, so we recognised that, put two up top, released our eights in midfield to go a bit higher, and it worked well.

“It was really pleasing to see all three forwards score and hopefully we can kick on from here.”