KILMARNOCK FIND THEIR MAN
Lee Clark set to take Rugby Park manager’s job
KILMARNOCK were this morning set to appoint Lee Clark as the club’s new manager, Herald Sport understands.
The former Huddersfield, Birmingham City and Blackpool manager, 43, is expected to take over from caretaker player-manager Lee McCulloch who has been in charge of the club since Gary Locke’s resignation in January.
Billy Davies, Simo Valakari and Graham Alexander had been linked with the post but Kilmarnock, who face Rangers in Scottish Cup replay at Rugby Park tomorrow, have turned to Clark., who has been out of work since leaving Blackpool last May.
STEVIE HAMMELL has witnessed the worst of times at Fir Park — friends losing jobs, shedding tears, walking away with the remnants of their working life wrapped up in black plastic bags.
Administration left scars in 2002. Hammell does not dare to think what devastation would be wreaked by relegation. He faced up to the prospect last season as the players fought successfully against Rangers in the final of the end-ofseason play-offs, listening to public pronouncements that defeat would not be a disaster for the club and acknowledging their hollowness.
There is not a lot of money circulating around Motherwell right now. Plans for supporter ownership have yet to come to fruition. The backing of chairman Les Hutchison is welcome given some of the characters and consortia that were circling last year — but Hammell is deeply pessimistic about what the future would hold should his side fall through the trapdoor this term.
Defeat to Kilmarnock returned Mark McGhee’s side to 11th spot, the position they finished last season. What was most worrying was the paucity of the performance. They were appalling, absolutely dreadful, managing only a handful of efforts at goal and having been undone by second-half strikes from Greg Kiltie and Craig Slater long before substitute Louis Moult hit the crossbar with a header in stoppage time.
Motherwell have now lost five of their last six matches, drawing the other. It hardly inspires confidence ahead of tomorrow’s trip to bottom club Dundee United and has Hammell fearful of being dragged into the living hell of the play-offs once again.
“We know all about it and we have spoken about it before,” he said. “The play-offs are horrible. If you find yourself there, you are going in to play a team that has momentum behind them.
“You know what is at stake. If you go down a division, especially with the difference between Premiership and Championship, it is huge.
“As much as the message beforehand [last season] was that things would not change, they would have.
“There are a lot of financial issues. It is not just about the players and the coaching staff. It is also about the staff in and around the place that you consider friends. All that is at stake.
“There is still a long way to go but to see yourself in this position hurts. We need to do everything we can as a club, a team, as a squad of players and staff to get us out of this because the play-offs last season were no fun at all. “I have not known anything like it. “It was not that long ago our form was excellent, though, and the gaffer won the manager-of-the-month award. We need to get back to that kind of form.”
McGhee did, indeed, win an award for his work in December from the sponsors of the Scottish Premiership, Ladbrokes. Much more of this and he will be right at the top of their “sack race” market.
Certainly, he is coming under more pressure from his own supporters. There has been much grumbling in recent weeks but the booing at half-time and full-time on Saturday was really quite deafening.
Hammell has asked the supporters to recall some of the more difficult times of the recent past, though, and stand together in this time of adversity.
“It [the booing] is understandable,” he said. “I was up there for large parts of last season and it is frustrating to watch. There is no denying that.
“What I would say, and the fans will have heard it before, is that we need to stick together. We have been through a lot of hard times at this club before and that is what has got us through them. I hope that will be the case again.
“We came in knowing we had three games in a week and that we wanted to pick up some points to get us into the pack just above us. This was not the start we wanted at all or the performance. We need to stick together now, as a club and as a whole.”
Of course, things can change quickly. Look at Kilmarnock. Their interim head coach Lee McCulloch described the players as being on their knees in terms of confidence when he took over from Gary Locke.
Since then, they have drawn at Ibrox and hauled themselves out of the relegation zone. They host Rangers in a Scottish Cup replay tomorrow evening with Slater confident that the side can give visiting manager Mark Warburton an even greater aversion to artificial surfaces.
“The win at Motherwell will give us extra confidence for Tuesday,” he said. “We will respect Rangers but we will not fear them. There is nothing to fear.
“The game at Ibrox could easily have gone either way.
“We already know that we will be at home in the quarter-finals if we beat Rangers and that is all the incentive we need to get through.
“There were some antics with Alloa and their artificial surface and Rangers ended up drawing. We will be having a go when they come to our place and, hopefully, we will beat them.”