Source: FOOTYMAD
SPL kicks off this weekend
The new season gets underway on Saturday with the visit of Inverness. Can Motherwell maintain the relatively high standards that have become the norm in recent years? The bar has been set at a fairly respectable level and the current squad will have to deliver a good season if they are to match the levels achieved in the last three or four years. Our final league positions since 2010/11 have been 6,5,7,3 and that has built a belief (or at least a hope!) that we can be expected to finish in the top half of the league. The fixture computer has dealt us a fairly good set of opening fixtures (Inveness h, Kilmarnock a, Hearts h, St Mirren a) and a decent haul from those matches could give us the flying start that has proved to be so important in the past. Keith Lasley confirmed that view after Saturday’s game against Leeds, “A couple of seasons ago we got off to a cracking start when Mark McGhee was manager here and by October we were sitting at third in the league. We won our first three or four games and that gave us the momentum and belief to keep going. If you get off on the right foot it can really get you going. It can work the other way too, though. I’ve seen seasons where it has taken a good wee while to get that first win and when that happens it starts to weigh you down a bit.” Last season’s impressive cup runs will add another target for this season’s bunch. While another final would be nice, surely we’ll get at least a trip to Hampden for a semi? At the moment our best eleven would appear to be as good as any that we have had in the last year or two though it is a bit thin. The transfer window does not close until the end of August and it seems likely that another couple of new faces will join Messrs Higdon and Law in the Fir Park dressing room. As ever we’ll turn up for the start of the season with loads of hope and expectation. Come on ye ‘Well!
