TALKING MOTHERWELL
CARL McHUGH insists Motherwell’s players can hold their nerve as face up to another nail-biting finale to the season.
Just two years ago the Fir Park club had to go through the horror of a Premiership play-off against Rangers, prevailing 6-1 on aggregate to preserve their 30-year top-flight status.
Skip forward to the present, and their place at the top table of Scottish football is on a shoogly stool.
Currently occupying the play-off spot in the Premiership, just four games remain for Motherwell to take matters into their own hands and avoid either a two-game shootout or – even more worrying – automatic relegation if Inverness make up ground.
“I think you’ve always got nerves because everyone knows it’s important,” said McHugh, the versatile Well midfielder.
“You have to embrace it because it’s a challenge and an opportunity for you to grow as a player and a person.
“It’s a tough situation, but there’s nerves every game you play.
“The importance grows each week, but I think we have the players to deal with it. We want to get out of the play-offs.
“Even though they have positive memories of winning the games it wasn’t a nice experience.”
Motherwell’s position is all the more precarious after an afternoon of frustration on Saturday dumped them in 11th place.
In a match which they dominated large chunks of, the Fir Park club went down 3-2 to Dundee while being on the end of another controversial non-goal.
Ben Heneghan’s header looked to cross the line in the second half only for it to be missed, coming as the third occasion this term of such an incident.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” added McHugh, who has been filling in at centre-half under Stephen Robinson.
“I don’t think I’ve experienced one decision which you feel so hard done by but the way it’s been in the last few games it’s been massively frustrating for us.
“I think that’s the worst one out of the lot of them. I was standing in front of it and it was well over the line. We haven’t been getting the rub of the green this season but we’re just going to have to get on with it and get results in the last four games.
“It’s massively frustrating because I thought we played well and they’ve had three entries into the box and scored three goals. If you look past the result, there’s a lot of positives to take into the last four games.
HE ADDED: “Goal-line technology definitely needs to be brought in because it’s too important at this stage of the season.
“There’s people’s livelihoods on the line and you can’t get that decision wrong whichever way you look at it.”
Next up is a massive game for Motherwell as Ross County come to Fir Park on Saturday, and the Irishman added: “I firmly believe we’ll finish the season strongly. Win or lose on Saturday you’re not going to be safe and you’re not going to be down.
“We’ve got four games left and it’s so tight above us.
“We play Ross County and everyone looks at them and thinks they’re safe but they’re four points ahead of us – that can change quickly.
“I think it could well go down to the last season but it’s in our own hands.” boys have held their hands up. We haven’t done our job at the other end of the pitch. It’s just massively frustrating.”
The good news for Accies is that their fate in their own hands, which is more than you can say about Inverness.
What they must do is cut out conceding daft goals such as the ones which cost them dearly last weekend.
Docherty said: “We shot ourselves in the foot with two very sloppy goals on our part.
“We can’t concede goals like that, we know we’re better than that and it’s so disappointing.
“It’s also disappointing that we let the fans down as our home form has been good of late.”