Stuart Kettlewell agrees with Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers over winter break but won't make excuses for Motherwell results
Stuart Kettlewell agrees with Brendan Rodgers that the return of a winter break would benefit Scottish football. But the Motherwell manager insists the Steelmen won’t “curl up in a ball” and give in to fatigue - even if he’s missing nine first team stars through injury.
Aston Oxborough, Lennon Miller, Paul McGinn, Steve Seddon, Aspostolos Stamatelopoulos, Jair Tavares, Harry Paton, Zach Robinson and Ross Callachan are all on the Fir Park crock list. A gruelling festive spell saw Well come through seven games in just 22 days didn’t help. Celtic boss Rodgers appealed for a return to a January break earlier this month arguing it would be “for the greater good of the game and our supporters”.
And Kettlewell said: “Whatever you put in front of me, I'll tackle it and I'll ensure that the players are braced to do that. Do we think that the winter break would help the number of injuries that we're seeing? Probably.
“That wee bit of extra rest to come again and just try and get the best product you can get If you look at the likes of our Kilmarnock game and even in elements of the Hibs game after it, there looked as if there was fatigue.
“That's not an excuse as to how we lose the game. But if you use that as a reference point, having that few extra days probably refreshes and sharpens your players up and allows them to feel not just quite as sore and as fatigued.
“If you put that in the context of a winter break, then I think that that would help. We don't have it this year. So we need to find another way where we just don't curl up into a ball and accept that times might be hard and that team selections might be difficult. Getting players on to training pitch might be difficult. We need to find another way.”
Motherwell are hunting reinforcements in the January window to help Kettlewell's depleted squad. Uncovering unpolished gems has been a source of success in his two years in charge. And the manager will again look to - as he puts it - “turn water into wine”.
He said: “If you're sitting here with money to spend on players and you can pay fees for players, then you can handpick the ones that are maybe playing well for a football club just now.
“Ones that are being picked every single week and that are international players. We're seeing that kind of happening across the country just now. We're not in that position.
“Sometimes what we have to be looking at is the young, inexperienced player that's waiting for an opportunity. Maybe somebody that's out of favour and is desperate to get out and play some game time.
“That's what we're looking for. I think we've shown time and again we can make a success of those categories of players.
“Not to pat myself on the back or the recruitment team here or the football club, but you are essentially at times looking to try and turn water into wine. We've been fortunate enough to do that and profit from that financially, but also on the pitch. And that's what we'll look to do again in January.
“But with that, there starts to become a timescale that you're not in control of, which can be the most frustrating part of it.”
