ONLY WAY IS UP FOR‘WELL
Lamie says Steelmen are making strides
Motherwell defender Ricki Lamie is targeting a surge up the Premiership table ahead of massive clashes with Kilmarnock and Lanarkshire rivals Hamilton Accies this week.
February is a hectic month for the Steelmen with seven fixtures, and they sit five points off the bottom of the table.
They head to Killie tonight and host Accies on Saturday.
However, they are also just seven points off the top six with two games in hand, and Lamie wants to finish as high as possible.
He said: “It’s so tight in the league, the bottom half especially, and we just want to give ourselves the platform to finish as high as possible.
“We are all aware that results haven’t been great at times this season but I think we’ve got the quality and we need to show that.
“We’ve had a couple of great results over the last couple of weeks and we need to keep that momentum going into Wednesday.
“We need to take the positives from the Celtic game and take that into a really busy fixture list for the rest of the month, starting with Kilmarnock.
“We will see how many points we can collect.”
Motherwell started the month with an excellent 2-1 win over Dundee United to move above Kilmarnock in the table.
Graham Alexander’s side lost to Celtic 2-1 on Saturday but it was a promising performance and they were unlucky not to take a point.
Lamie started both fixtures in the absence of captain Declan Gallagher through a muscle injury and he is happy with his form under new boss Alexander.
He said: “I’m really pleased [with how I’ve played over the last few games]. I was frustrated because I had a wee niggly injury and I was out for a couple of weeks when the new manager came into the role.
“Everybody just wants to show the new manager what they can do so it was frustrating for me, but the boys have been doing well.
“You need to bide your time, try to train well every day, and I feel as though I’ve been doing that.”
Lamie is enjoying his partnership with Bevis Mugabi and said: “I spoke to Chris Lucketti and the gaffer when they came in as they were both defenders themselves and that was the principals set.
“We need to do the basics right and everything else is a bonus.
“I pride myself on being able to do that, defending the box, penalty area and being resilient.”