Jens Berthel Askou: Teams are doing whatever they can to compete with Motherwell

Motherwell manager Jens Berthel Askou expects teams to try every trick to disrupt their progress.

But he welcomes the chance to come up with counter-plans.

The Steelmen sit fourth in the William Hill Premiership ahead of Saturday’s visit of Dundee and are unbeaten in nine league matches.

When asked if he felt like they now had a target on their backs, Askou said: “I think we felt that quite early, actually.

“Was it the second game in the league where we went to, actually a very nice pitch at St Mirren, but they decided not to water it because that was probably in their favour. Or they at least felt that was in their favour.

“So we’ve experienced that from more or less day one that clubs are doing whatever they can. Moving the balls behind the goals further out towards the corner flag so we can’t start fast from goal-kicks, stuff like that.

“That’s just something for us to see if we can up our level. So it doesn’t really matter what they do and what they try to do to compete with us.

“We also try to see what little details are important against any opposition, where we can find a little idea or a little trick where we can get an advantage against the opposition.

“I think it’s only fair and expected that everyone will try and do that against us.

“Not many teams have the approach that we have, which means that often when we play teams, they change up their normal approach a little bit, either formation-wise or in terms of their basic ideas and how they want to attack the game.

“And I welcome that, I think it’s good. It keeps us and everyone on their toes. There’s been some thoughts put into how to be competitive against each other. So I think that’s a good thing for the league in general.”

Motherwell have kept five consecutive clean sheets but have drawn three of those matches and the Dane is working to ensure they can break teams down.

“We are working hard to make sure that no matter what plan they come up with, A, B, C, D, E, F and so on, we have a better one,” he said.

“Sometimes we have. Sometimes we haven’t quite been able to be as dominant as we would like and create as many open chances.

“That is something we are constantly working on improving. By improving the individual skill sets and the relational work and level that they have, how they link up with each other, some strategies to come up with that.”