Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell happy to get ‘ragged and ugly’ win and move on

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell was satisfied to remain on course for League Cup progress despite admitting his side were “ragged and ugly” in possession before taking the lead against Queen’s Park.

Well struggled to get going in the first quarter at Fir Park before Jon Obika netted the only goal for 1-0 via a deflection in the 29th minute shortly after missing a glorious headed chance.

Both sides hit the bar, Motherwell on two occasions through Blair Spittal and Callum Slattery, and Queen’s Park had two decent penalty claims rejected in the second half.

Well have the chance to wrap up Group G when they host East Fife next Saturday while Queen’s Park have no chance of topping the group after collecting one point from their opening two games.

Kettlewell said: “We can undoubtedly be better performance-wise. It took us a while to get going, Queen’s Park had the upper hand in the early stages.

“But we started to find a solution. It’s important that players rectify situations. For me, it was making contact and turning the ball over more frequently, and then being better and more composed when we did.

“I thought we were a bit ragged and ugly at times when we turned the ball over in the first half.

“We were better towards the end of the first half and start of second half and we could have been more composed and dominant towards the end of the game.

“But I gave the players the task of topping this group and we are doing that and we were better defensively than we were on Tuesday.”