Kettlewell says its 'remarkable' Motherwell are still in contention for top six

Stuart Kettlewell says it’s remarkable that Motherwell are still in contention for the Premiership top six considering where they were when he took over in February.

The former Ross County boss took over from Steven Hammell with the club sitting in the bottom two but quickly turned their form around with a string of wins.

They now sit only four points from the top half with two games remaining until the split.

Ahead of their match against bottom side Dundee United, Kettlewell said: “From my point of view, I encountered a situation and the football club encountered a situation, we can’t start to think if I had come in at another point, if players had been fit or if we could have got certain decisions, that’s football and that’s how it works.

“From my point of view, the remit was coming in for the first game against St Mirren, I took on the role and the players took on the task at hand and we have just worked with that ever since.

“I think what we would say is the fact it is still mathematically possible, and it’s a massive outside chance, that we still have an opportunity to get top six is pretty amazing from where we started, but it’s not really been a focus.

“But for us to be in that position with two games to go is pretty remarkable in terms of how the players have performed and how they have acquitted themselves.

“But for us it’s genuinely about another game on a Saturday and another chance to try and get three points and that’s what we will do and after that we will see what happens.

“If we can perform the way we have done in the last couple of weeks then I think we will give ourselves a brilliant chance of winning some more points on Saturday, and if we don’t then we know we will be in for a real tough afternoon.”

Even if Motherwell take all three points against Dundee United, and Livingston and Hibernian both lose, then the Steelman still face a massive task to get into the top half with a game at Celtic Park against the runaway league leaders the following week.

They would need to take something to have any chance of overtaking the two teams ahead of them in seventh and sixth place.