Motherwell’s road to
Hampden starts on Saturday when Ross County visit Fir Park for the fourth round
of the Scottish Cup.
When the teams met
last season Ross County were in the top flight but now they are struggling at
the wrong end of the Championship. Some
took them as a candidate for an immediate return to the Premiership but a poor
start to the campaign led to the departure of Don Cowie. John Roberston stood in as interim manager
before Tony Docherty was given the job.
Alas, fortunes plunged and now Stuart Kettlewell leads the
Highlanders. On his last visit to Fir
Park he was in charge of Kilmarnock.
County will take some comfort from last week’s 2-0 win over Partick Thistle but they suffered a 2-0 knockout on Wednesday as St Johnstone progressed in the Challenge Cup. Kettlewell fielded a starting eleven with eight changes as he took the chance to see more of his squad in action..
Their top scorer Ronan
Hale may be a transfer target during this current window but the Staggies hope
he will remain to lead a move up the table.
He has 30 goals to his credit in 65 appearances but there is a
suggestion that he may miss out on Saturday due to illness.
There could be several
familiar faces on show as a number of former Motherwell players have joined the
opposition including Declan Gallagher, Jordan White, Trevor Carson, Dean
Cornelius and James Scott.
Motherwell will be in
good heart. Last week’s draw in Edinburgh kept them in fourth place with a fine
run that had only one loss in the last dozen.
While the loss to
injury of Elliot Watt and the recall to Celtic of Stephen Welsh are
disappointments, Jens Berthel Askou has demonstrated that his squad adapts well
to changes in personnel. Stephen
O’Donnell may be a doubt following his early departure at Easter Road.
The odds are heavily
in favour of a home win and a catastrophic loss of form would be needed to
prevent Motherwell reaching the fifth round.
2-0 will see us through.
