Kettlewell happy to ‘put ghost to rest’ after ‘professional’ victory
Ross County Motherwell
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STUART KETTLEWELL was happy to exorcise the demon of the worst Motherwell performance in his time as manager with a 5-1 win over Ross County in Dingwall.
Blair Spittal and Paul McGinn capitalised on errors from County goalkeeper Ross Laidlaw to give Motherwell a 2-1 half-time lead, with Simon Murray having equalised on the counter-attack.
That is the way the score remained until the 82nd minute, when Motherwell ran away with the points thanks to three late goals from Spittal, Davor Zdravkovski and Harry Paton.
A delighted Kettlewell, whose side moved up to seventh spot with the win, said: “Our worst performance by a country mile since I came to the club as a manager was up here in a 3-0 defeat, and that was a sore one for me and the players, but I think today shows that we’ve turned a corner.
“It feels like we’ve put that ghost to rest, and it was a really professional performance.
“We could have turned up and gone through the motions, and not put our bodies on the line, but it really pleased me the way we played.
“We want to finish as high up the league as we can, because we know that every place in this league means money, and it’s something that’s going to help us moving forward.”
It was the visitors who posed the early threat in Dingwall.
Laidlaw needed to make saves to deny Georgie Gent and Andy Halliday in the opening exchanges, before a mistake from the Staggies goalkeeper led to the opener after eight minutes.
A long ball forward from opposite number Liam Kelly looked to be bouncing harmlessly through to Laidlaw, only for him to misjudge the path of the ball and parry it in the direction of Spittal, who was left with an open goal to score against his former employers.
County responded well, levelling five minutes later through Murray, who slotted past Kelly after being played through by Eli King on the counter. From there the Staggies put pressure on their opponents, with Connor Randall coming closest after seeing his chip cleared off the line by Shane Blaney.
Another Laidlaw error, this time coming to collect a Gent free-kick and not getting to the ball, allowed McGinn to restore Motherwell’s lead before the interval.
As time wore on Motherwell looked to try and hold on to their advantage, dropping deeper and inviting County to try and break them down.
Yan Dhanda would go close with one effort across the face of goal that went wide of the mark, but that was one of the few occasions the Staggies had a clear sight of goal.
Motherwell on the other hand would extend their lead, with Theo Bair teeing up Spittal to curl the ball past Laidlaw and into the corner of the net.
That goal essentially sealed all three points for the Steelmen, but the scoring did not end there as Bair again turned provider, this time setting up Zdravkovski for a simple finish in the 90th minute.
And, in stoppage time, Canada midfielder Paton wrap up the scoring when he passed the ball into the bottom corner.
County interim manager Don Cowie, meanwhile, felt that his side “unravelled” in the closing stages of the match.
“We’ve gifted them two goals in the first half, and we got punished for it,” he said.
“The game was 2-1 with 10 minutes to go, and ultimately Motherwell have picked us off when we had to go for it.
“I have no issue with losing games of football, but we have to make sure it doesn’t spiral out of control like it did today.
“We have another massive game on Wednesday night, and we have to focus on that now.”