Maurice Ross dealt with 'privately' by Motherwell after Celtic and St Mirren enraged by comments

Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson has "dealt privately" with the fall-out over the media activities of coach Maurice Ross.

Maurice Ross' comments on radio have been a huge talking point this week.

The Fir Park first-team coach sparked unhappy responses from Celtic, St Mirren and Kilmarnock following his guest appearance on BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound programme on Sunday.

Robinson said: "I just dealt privately with the matter and any issue that's been going on this week in any shape or form I have dealt with privately, and that's the way it will remain. I conduct my business in private.

"Any issue I have dealt with and it's over now and we are concentrating fully on football matches. We haven't had one for a long time."

Celtic manager Neil Lennon earlier revealed Robinson had "apologised profusely" following his coach's analysis of Rangers' Parkhead win, while the Motherwell boss has also spoken to St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin.

Among other things, former Rangers defender Ross claimed Celtic's starting line-up was the weakest he had seen in 20 years, queried how long it took Leigh Griffiths to get fit, questioned Celtic's recruitment policy and claimed their understanding of their 3-5-2 formation was "very basic".

After Motherwell had games at Kilmarnock and St Mirren postponed because of Covid-19 outbreaks among their opponents, Ross claimed clubs could theoretically use the pandemic to get matches postponed if it suited them.

St Mirren chief executive Tony Fitzpatrick wrote to Fir Park counterpart Alan Burrows to express his disappointment at the "unfortunate and unhelpful" comments while Kilmarnock boss Alex Dyer claimed "there's no need to make headlines".

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