Sondre rises to Hammell’s challenge
Stevie Hammell admitted he had stressed the importance of returning to winning ways before playing United at Tannadice.
The Steelmen had lost four on the bounce prior to yesterday’s game but the Fir Park boss insisted he was not overly concerned about the rotten run.
However, he was still delighted to secure the narrow win that took his team up to sixth in the table.
Hammell said: “I told them before the game it was important to get back to winning ways.
“We can’t be a team who plays well but doesn’t pick up points.
“We highlighted the importance of coming here and getting points.
“People talk about four straight defeats, and if we were losing heavily I would be concerned, but we aren’t.
“We are sixth and that’s in and around where we want to be. We understand today wasn’t perfect but we are trying to be positive.”
Hammell has also challenged matchwinner Sondre Solholm Johansen to hit the back of the net on a more regular basis.
The manager added: “It’s something I spoke to him about. We do individual meetings, progression meetings and how we think they can do better and he was telling me he scored 25 goals before he came to Motherwell.
“So that was something we really needed to highlight and be better at.
“He’s a great guy, a good character in the dressing room, he takes information on board.
“He’s a good player to have in your squad. With his ability and the amount of set-pieces we get and the delivery we have, he should be scoring more.
“It’s a challenge we put on - it’s not just up to Kevin and the forward players to score.
“Centre-backs, midfielders, full-backs, the players around the edge of the box, we need to be a bigger threat at set-pieces and I thought we carried that today.”
Hammell was also pleased that his team had limited United to few chances over the course of the game with keeper Liam Kelly having little to do.
He added: “United had more of the ball than I would have liked with 10 men.
“Liam had one save to make and that’s pleasing. The second half wasn’t enjoyable but we did enough to win it.”