Clay looks to evict his old flat-mate from top division
JUST weeks after being cut adrift by Motherwell, defender Louis Laing insisted that his new club Inverness boasted a better squad than the one he had left behind in Lanarkshire.
Declaring his ambition to finish above the Fir Park outfit in the league, he disparagingly described his former employers’ recent run of results as ‘diabolical’.
Laing’s comments were duly noted in Motherwell, not least by his former flat-mate Craig Clay. Eyebrows were raised, with Caley Thistle themselves now on a woeful run of just one win in 21 league matches.
Clay disagrees entirely with Laing’s assessment of both squads and believes the Steelmen can show their mettle to prove it this afternoon with a win over rock-bottom visitors Inverness.
Should that happen, it would go a long way to evicting his former room-mate and the Highlanders from the Scottish Premiership.
‘I read Louis’ comments about the two squads,’ nodded Clay.
‘He is entitled to his opinion, but I can’t say I agree. I think we have class players at Motherwell.
‘I wouldn’t say Inverness have a better overall squad, but he can say what he wants.
‘Whether that’s what he really thinks or whether he is just saying that because he’s a bit disappointed about how his time here went, I don’t know. But he’s a nice boy and I’ve got nothing bad to say about him.
‘He actually stayed with me for a week-and-a-half when he was in limbo before joining Inverness.
‘He had just come back on loan and he wasn’t sure where his future lay. So, instead of him paying for a hotel, he crashed at mine for a bit.
‘At night, we would put on a film or two and play FIFA. Now I need to get three points for real on Saturday.
‘It’s strange to think we lived together and now we’ll be going up against each other in such an important match. Hopefully, we can put one over on him.
‘I’m sure he will say hellos to a few of the boys, but there will be no friends once we get out there on the pitch.’
A win for Stephen Robinson’s second-bottom side would open up a significant seven-point gap on a Caley Thistle outfit who won 3-0 at Fir Park back in October.
And 24-year-old midfielder Clay is desperate to avoid being part of a relegated club for the second time in his fledgling career.
‘When I was a young boy at Chesterfield, about 18 I think, we got relegated,’ he said. ‘We had just been promoted into League One the season before, then we came straight back down again.
‘It was a high to a low. We were at the bottom of the table a lot of the season and were relegated with around three games to go.
‘I wasn’t really playing much as I was still young, but it affects you. It affects your family, the fans, people with jobs. I’m sure people did lose their jobs and that’s not something you ever want to see happen.
‘It’s something I don’t want to have on my CV ever again.
‘Hopefully, we can pull ourselves out of this situation, get our fingers out and get out of this mess.
‘The league is so tight right now that any of the bottom six can get dragged into it. That makes every game we have left just like a cup final.
‘We just have to stick to our gameplan and try to get the three points against Inverness.’
Laing, for his part, insists that Richie Foran’s team are still very much in control of their Premiership destiny despite an awful run of form.
‘We’re obviously sitting bottom of the table, so that’s a fact we can’t avoid, but it’s in our hands,’ he said.
‘That’s what we’re looking to do, we’re looking to win every game.
‘The past five or six games have been pretty unfortunate.
‘If you put aside the last game (a 3-0 defeat to St Johnstone), we could have scraped three or four wins.
‘It hasn’t gone for us, though. Sometimes, we need a bit of luck.
‘We’ve had two or three great chances in each of those games where we could have put the ball in the back of the net.
‘We’ve scraped some draws in games we should have won. These last six games are vital — and I think we’ll be all right.’
Laing is aware of the importance of the game against his former club. They are Caley Thistle’s nearest rivals, and they also play them at home on the last day of the season.
‘At worst, we cannot lose,’ he argued. ‘We go into the game pretty confident, we’ve had a good week’s training.
‘We’ve learned a lot from last week’s game and we know what we need to do.
‘It wasn’t nice, being beaten 3-0 last weekend. We’ve learned things from that game, though, and we’ll take the fight to Motherwell.’
Motherwell’s Craig Clay was speaking as the SPFL Trusted Trophy Tour hit Fir Park. For more information go to www.trustedtrophytour.co.uk
“We would watch movies and play FIFA”