Motherwell will be hosting St Mirren today but home manager Mark McGhee will have to be thinking ahead to Thursday's UEFA Cup game when making his selection for the game. McGhee does not want to risk players who are "not 100%" ahead of the game against Nancy. Defender Stephen Craigan picked up a groin injury in the midweek CIS Cup defeat to Hamilton, while midfielder Stephen Hughes has been troubled by a leg knock. McGhee's choice is further hampered by the fact that striker Chris Porter is suspended following his first-half red card in Wednesday night's cup derby defeat. The Fir Park side sit second-bottom of the table on goal difference and go into the game following four straight defeats to the Old Firm, UEFA Cup opponents Nancy and newly-promoted Hamilton. However, the manager is unconcerned about his team's position or paltry points tally of four at this stage, and believes they will start moving up the table if they can maintain the flashes of form they have shown this season for the full 90 minutes. McGhee has called on his players to make an early impression today .
McGhee said: "We're going to have to find the sort of performance that we've found later in games recently: 20 minutes at the end at Rangers, the second half of the Celtic game, half an hour at the end at Nancy and the second half when we went down to 10 men against Hamilton. We have to find that from minute one, which is what we haven't been able to do in these past games, and I want us to come out of the traps fast. It isn't rocket science. The strikers as a whole haven't gelled as a three the way that last season's trio did, we miss Ross McCormack who was a spark at this stage last season, Stephen Hughes hasn't been at his best and the two full-backs haven't been getting involved going forward as much. But we're working to put all that right and had a session with the strikers yesterday. We shouldn't be judged on Celtic, Nancy, Rangers and even the Hamilton game, because we don't think we'd have lost had Chris Porter not been sent off. I think we should be judged on the next four or five, and then we can see where are we and where we sit in the pecking order. It's not as though we haven't shown last year's form already this year as we could easily have got something at Hearts, should have beaten Aberdeen and annihilated Dundee United, but only got a draw, so it isn't quite as bad a picture as it looks."
St Mirren's injury list has been extended with the addition of Craig Dargo who picked up a knee injury at training on Wednesday, and will be on the sidelines today alongside defender Will Haining, who suffered a calf problem in Tuesday night's CIS Cup exit. Andy Dorman missed that game against Dunfermline but is expected to be back in the squad for Fir Park, but David Barron and Stephen O'Donnell are both still out with knee injuries. St Mirren manager Gus MacPherson is confident his players will immediately bounce back from their midweek cup defeat The Love Street boss described the final quarter of the 2-0 loss as being "as bad as I've seen us", but claims his squad have responded in the right way to his tough love statement and will learn from the defeat.
He said: "We're looking for a reaction from them - we've had a talk since that game and reminded the players that they've done a lot of good stuff so far this season, and it's about getting back to doing what they're good at. The boys were naturally disappointed, but the good thing is that this game has come along quickly, so we have an opportunity to rectify it; and we've done a lot of work like crossing, shooting, finishing drills and being positive during this week. We've had a frustrating start to the season because we've played pretty well in the league and not got the points we feel we've deserved, and we want to change that against Motherwell. I saw their cup tie against Hamilton and they played pretty well, especially in the second half when they were down to 10 men, so there will be two disappointed sets of players desperate to make amends for poor results." | Editor
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