Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson lauded Nadir Ciftci as a "special talent" after his double downed Hamilton, but said it would be tough to secure the forward's signature on a permanent basis.

The on-loan Celtic attacker set the Steelmen on their way to victory over Accies by pouncing on a rebound in the first half.

Ciftci would then produce a fine piece of individual skill to set up his second on 70 minutes, before going close to a hat-trick when he struck the crossbar shortly after Tom Aldred added a third for the hosts.

The 26-year-old - who is ineligible against his parent club in the Scottish Cup final - still has a year left on his Parkhead deal but is not in Brendan Rodgers' plans.

Robinson, though, still believes a permanent move to Fir Park is unlikely given his wages.

"When Nadir plays like that he is unplayable," said Robinson, whose team finished seventh in the top flight. "He is a special talent but he's not fit.

"If he got fit and we got him fit then he could do that week in, week out.

"But he's a super boy. People told me not to sign him, people tried to put me off him as a character, and I can refute that completely.

"He has been great around the club."

When asked about the prospect of re-signing him, Robinson said: "We can maybe look at it, but the financial gap with what we could pay him would maybe make that extremely difficult.

"But he's a boy I have so much time for and a lot of respect for. With Nadir's quality, we were able to rest the two boys up front (Ryan Bowman and Curtis Main) who had little niggles.

"A lot of our changes were based on people carrying niggles rather than wholesale changes."

Robinson made eight changes to his starting line-up for Accies' visit, with only Aldred, Richard Tait and Liam Grimshaw likely to start against Celtic.

Despite the makeover, the home side were in control against a lacklustre Accies outfit.

A ninth defeat in ten saw Hamilton only avoid the Premiership play-off on goal difference.

The display reinforced boss Martin Canning's belief that renovation work is required over the summer.

He said: "If you watched that and what's happened over the last wee bit, there is a lot of work to do over the summer if we are going to be competitive next season.

"That was poor, too many players didn't play well enough. We've got a lot of injuries and gave a lot of boys an opportunity to go out and play, but I still expected more that what I saw.

"We were very soft, we were second to most things and it was disappointing. But what it does do is make it clear in everyone's mind what we have to go and do now.

"It was an opportunity for boys to show they want to be at Hamilton Accies and play in the Premiership. And, for me too many were not quite at that level."