Motherwell can advance, says Israeli expert
MOTHERWELL take on Hapoel Be’er Sheva in Israel tonight for a place in the Europa League play-off.
The challenge facing Stephen Robinson and his players in the stifling heat of Israel is one that appears daunting at first but according to Israeli football expert Raphael Gellar, the task is not insurmountable.
While the Israeli outfit have enjoyed their fair share of success in recent years, the current crop are a squad in transition, with Be’er Sheva embarking on a cost-cutting exercise to slash the club’s wage bill: something that Gellar believes Motherwell can use to their advantage tonight.
“Last spring, the owner announced that she was leaving.” Gellar explained. “There was a huge process of getting rid of players with huge wages off the bill.
“They needed to get some big guys off the wage bill and they did. At the same time, they made a lot of changes to the team because even though they were reducing the wage bill, they still needed to bring in new players. They went from a philosophy of spending big money and signing big names but they don’t have that same backing now.
“In previous years this would have been an easy draw for them. They were used to playing top teams in Champions League qualifiers – they were the first team to beat Inter Milan home and away in the group stage of a tournament. They were playing at a very high level but only two or three players were part of those teams.
“It’s a new team. There are a lot of these guys that are talented but they are getting to the stage where they need to prove themselves. Some of them were playing in the Israeli second division in June.
“It’s a team that up until last year was one of the top two teams in Israel. In the last six or seven years they’ve really cemented themselves as one of the top teams in Israel; they won three titles in a row. It’s a transition year. They have a new coach who arrived in winter last year.
“They still have very good players but maybe the Israeli players are a step down compared to what they’ve had in recent years.”