Stuart Kettlewell knows Motherwell cannot just rely on Apostolos Stamatelopoulos

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell warned his team that they will need to improve every aspect of Sunday’s performance and not rely on incoming striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos to give them a lift.

Kettlewell’s side were booed off by some fans despite booking a second-round tie with Kilmarnock as a goalless home draw with Partick Thistle secured top spot in Premier Sports Cup Group G.

Mason McCready saved well from Zach Robinson and Liam Gordon in the first half but Motherwell otherwise failed to seriously trouble the goalkeeper on his first start for Thistle, who had the better chances.

Stamatelopoulos was present at Fir Park as he goes through his medical after Motherwell agreed a fee with Newcastle Jets.

The 25-year-old earned an Australia debut earlier this year after hitting 17 goals in 25 A-League games for Jets but Kettlewell expects a lot more from his other forwards.

“I need to stress that he doesn’t become the dramatic saviour to what was a really poor performance,” he said.

“We think it’s someone that can add goals to your team, that can give us that focal point at the top end of the pitch, but every single other aspect to our team will need to be better for him to go and try and perform.

“He’s a bit behind. He’s played an All Star game, and he’s been training for a couple of weeks over in Australia. His wife has just had a baby there on Tuesday, which has sort of interrupted the flow but he’s at a reasonable stage.

“Physically, it will still take some more work to make sure that we’re getting him up to full speed to play 90 minutes in the game.”

Robinson was unfortunate to see his curling effort tipped on to the bar but later made a mess of a header while Serbian attacker Filip Stuparevic struggled to hold on to the ball on his first start.

Kettlewell said: “We’ll never achieve anything in the game if we don’t press from the front end of the pitch, so that was a lot of my frustration.

“If we don’t show any energy from that front end of the park, we’re never going to turn the ball over and try and create some sort of counter-attack.

“If we don’t move well enough when we’re in possession of the ball, if we don’t try and drag our opponents in areas that we speak about every single day, if we don’t look after the ball when it’s played into those areas, then that attack just starts to come back on to your back line again.

“Each time it went into a forward area, we lost possession of the ball, we’re caught behind the defender, we never had a spike to go in behind them.

“So therefore for your defenders and your midfield players, what you’re looking at is giving you absolutely nothing in front and you don’t have a trust to then play the ball forward.

“That knock-on effect is us stroking the ball about across the back and playing into midfield players without any real focal point and any real target to go and attack the opposition.”