Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson defends ‘distraught’ Ryan Bowman

MOTHERWELL manager Stephen Robinson has defended “absolutely distraught” striker Ryan Bowman and insisted he is not a dirty player.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has been among those to criticise Bowman after the striker’s flailing elbow broke Rangers defender Fabio Cardoso’s nose as the pair jumped for a high ball during Motherwell’s Betfred Cup semi-final triumph, having earlier been booked for a similar incident.

Rodgers, whose team meet Motherwell in the final, singled out the former Gateshead player – who was booked for a knee-high tackle on Kieran Tierney last season – and added that some challenges on Sunday were “endangering players’ lives and careers”.

Ahead of Wednesday’s Ladbrokes Premiership clash at Dundee, Robinson said: “I don’t discuss other teams or other people’s players. What I will do is discuss Ryan Bowman. Ryan Bowman is a boy who has come from non-league and is fighting his way in the game.

“He’s absolutely distraught with certain comments. He’s played 46 games in Scotland and been booked three times, so it doesn’t suggest to me that he’s exactly dirty, is he? Over a five-year span I believe he has been booked nine times.

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“He’s a quiet boy with no malice in him in any shape or form. He’s disappointed. It seems to me people are a little bit disappointed we are in the final. But Ryan will be fine.

“There’s one player in another team – again, I don’t talk about other players and put them out in the media to be spotlighted – who got booked more times in a month than Ryan has in a season. So he is most definitely not a dirty player.

“He is wholehearted. He is a big clumsy lump at times, but he gives absolutely everything and he will certainly not be changing the way he plays. No way.

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“I don’t know if people are trying to get referees to look at that. I have no idea. But deal in the facts. As a team, seven teams in the league have committed more fouls than us.

“If you compare us to Rangers, because we played them on Sunday, we are very close in the league and in nine games we have committed 115 fouls and they have committed 112. We run hard, battle hard and try to play football as well. We have scored in every game bar the Aberdeen game in the league. So we are doing OK.”

Robinson refused to hit back directly at Rodgers and he dismissed Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha’s comments that Motherwell would not keep 11 men on the park if they played the same way in the final.

“That’s up to Pedro, Pedro doesn’t need to concern himself about the final,” Robinson said. “I’m going to concentrate solely on us.”

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Rangers defender Bruno Alves – who got away with kicking goalscorer Louis Moult, who was also elbowed by Cardoso – accused Motherwell of “unacceptable” behaviour after the game.

Robinson said: “It was a physical game, from both teams it was a physical game.

“We’ve got players in the dressing room battered and bruised with ice packs on. Louis Moult’s got stitches in his eye. But we don’t complain about things like that. We just get on with it.

“We are a wee, small club, probably over-achieving, and we will just keep doing that.”