Boss steeled for games as Well talk investment

STUART Kettlewell is adopting a businessas-usual approach at Motherwell after the club revealed they have moved a step closer to an agreement with a United States-based potential investor.

The Well Society has a 71% stake in the club and its board stressed members would have the final approval on any potential deal that emerged.

But in a week where Brian Caldwell joined the Fir Park club as chief executive, the prospect of investment from across the Atlantic appeared to be closer as a club statement read: “The executive board of the club would like to confirm that investment discussions with a US-based family have reached the point where both parties wish to move forward to the next stage and have therefore entered into an agreement on non-binding heads of terms.”

Manager Kettlewell refrained from looking too far ahead.

He said: “My understanding of the conversations that I’ve had – and I’ve not been involved in a great deal of it, which you’ll understand – is that it’s just a small step. That’s all it is.

“With all these things, they can be a longer process, so that doesn’t necessarily change

anything in my mindset and my remit.

“You look at budget over the summer.

“That’s going to pretty much look exactly what it is just now until someone tells me any different which certainly doesn’t seem to be on the horizon.

“I think it’s a positive step, because I’m always a believer in evolution, if there’s ways of improving things at football clubs. What I do need to know is what the plan is moving forward and we do sit with a plan for the summer.”

The Steelmen sit eighth in the table – six points behind sixthplaced Dundee – with just two games remaining before the split, away to the Dens Park side and at home to seventh-placed Hibernian, who are five ahead.

He said: “Six points up for grabs, I will not shoot my mouth off. I’m not saying that we’re going to get top six.

“But let’s go and take a real positive mindset into these next two games starting against Dundee and if you win one game of football, the situation might still be mathematically possible going into our home game and that’s all we can really control.

“We need a favour or two in there, we do need one or two aspects to go our way but we can only concentrate on this game on Saturday and it’s going to be a tough one.”

FOCUS: Stuart Kettlewell wants to know his budget for Motherwell.

American money could be coming into Fir Park in the near future.