Stuart Kettlewell says more creative approach required for injury-hit Motherwell

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell admits the reality of fitness issues will force a more pragmatic approach for Saturday’s William Hill Premiership opener than the “blue sky thinking” of his close-season plans.

Kettlewell may not have Apostolos Stamatelopoulos available for Saturday’s visit of Ross County after the striker arrived from Newcastle Jets in Australia as the club look to replace Theo Bair’s goals.

Defenders Paul McGinn and Steve Seddon are at various stages of fitness following injuries while new wing-back Johnny Koutroumbis faces another six weeks out.

But it is the midfield area that is causing most concern at this stage with Sam Nicholson, Tom Sparrow and Ross Callachan catching up after pre-season injuries, and both Harry Paton and Callum Slattery ruled out until late in the year.

Davor Zdravkovski, Lennon Miller and Andy Halliday are likely to start against County but all three have mainly featured in deeper roles for Motherwell.

Kettlewell said: “It’s difficult because obviously you sit with your blue sky thinking and you map out where players are going to play and what jobs they’re going do for your team.

“Well, even this early we’ve had to try and be creative with that. I’m going to have to try and probably be creative with that again on Saturday.

“What I need to do is try and pick 11 fit players and 11 guys that I’ve got a decent expectation that they can play 90 minutes and then you need to start working your way back from that if you want to make tactical changes, if you want to make changes to freshen up your team and put more energy into it.

“I always talk about trying to put square pegs in square holes but we’ve not had our troubles to seek.

“That’s not an excuse. Far from it, because we’ve got enough players, we’ve got a squad here but with the injuries, with players coming in late, people trying to get up to speed, players missing a bit of football and then now trying to catch up and then obviously it creates one or two dilemmas.

“My job is to make sure that I can get that as fluid as I possibly can, as easy for the players to understand and grasp as we possibly can. And then try and build on it.

“I would love to be sitting with that in a better place. I would love to be sitting with that a week or two ahead of where we are, but that’s the hand we’re dealt.

“So we have to go and make the absolute best of it and we’ll certainly not be shirking the challenge and we’ll be making sure that we’re in the best place we possibly can be for what’s going to be a hard game on Saturday.”

On Stamatelopoulos, Kettlewell said: “We’re still waiting for international clearance and a work permit so we just need to wait and see how that goes over the next two days, as to what his involvement could be on Saturday, if at all.

“But he’s slightly behind with his fitness levels. We knew that he’s done some runs himself when he was over in Australia to see if he can make up that wee bit of ground, but I’m confident he’s a fit lad and he’s someone that’s played a lot of football last season, so I don’t think it’ll be a great fight to get him up to speed.”