Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson was coy yesterday when quizzed about his interest in Chesterfield defender Paul McGinn, as he admitted that he is looking to strengthen his defence.

Robinson wouldn’t comment specifically on the possibility of McGinn joining the club, although he did concede that the player has been of interest to him previously.

If he is to secure the signature of the 26-year-old though, the likelihood is that he will have to push another squad player towards the Fir Park exit door.

“Paul is a Chesterfield player,” Robinson said. “Obviously we are looking at defenders and he may have been somebody we have looked at, but I’m not going to make any comments on anybody else’s players at the minute.

“I’m always looking to bring people in, I don’t think you ever stop trying to strengthen the squad.

“We are looking at bringing in another defender if we’re honest to strengthen up the backline and then we would be happy with our business, but we’ll probably have to do some business out of the club before we are able to do that.”

One man who has joined the club this week is Lithuanian international Deimantas Petravi?ius, who has signed up at ‘Well until the end of the season.

Robinson is excited by what the pacey prospect can add to his frontline once he is up to speed with the Scottish game, even though Robinson may take a while to get up to speed with how to pronounce his name.

“We call him Dimi!” he said. “He was someone who we saw a year ago and Martin Foyle, our chief scout, kept an eye on him at (Nottingham) Forest.

“He has electric pace, he’s very direct, and he can play anywhere across the front three.

“He’s a young boy still making his way in the game. We can never buy a finished article, so he’s somebody we think we can develop like George Newell.

“He has is a very good pedigree. He already has seven caps for Lithuania.

“I think he is maybe still two or three weeks away from a starting place, and he will have to fight for that if we keep winning football matches.

“But what he does is add competition to the squad, and he could have a big impact from the bench.”

Another recent arrival at Motherwell was rewarded for an accomplished start to life in Lanarkshire earlier this week, as man-mountain defender Cedric Kipre extended his deal to the end of next season.

“He’s a young boy with good attributes, and we took a bit of a chance bringing him in based on that,” said Robinson.

“I think he deserved a new contract. He’s been excellent, even though he’s got a lot of improvement still to go.

“We wanted to bring him up to the same level as the first-team boys because we consider him a first-team player.

“We try to reward our players. We can’t put their wages up by thousands of pounds, but what we can do is make sure they are all on the same level where there’s a real togetherness and everyone knows they are on the same kind of money.

“It’s also to protect ourselves. We think he’s only going to get better and better.”