Could Motherwell Win The SPL?

A lot has been made of the significance of tomorrow’s match between Hearts and Motherwell in the Scottish Cup at Tynecastle, with it being ‘Well’s first match since the tragic death of
their captain Phil O’Donnell. And rightly so.

There seems to be a popular belief that Motherwell’s season, which has been a revelation to date under the impressive Mark McGhee, could now go one of two ways in the extreme: they either capitulate under the tragedy and drop down the league, or they respond as their former leader would have wanted and double their efforts to ensure that what O’Donnell helped them start is seen through to a successful conclusion.

I sincerely hope that it’s the latter, both for all of those connected with Motherwell FC and also the Scottish game as a whole. It has been great to see the emergence of this young side so far this season – they perhaps don’t have the most talented squad of players in the league, but McGhee appears to have them extremely well organised and tactically aware. These are qualities which, when added to the individual abilities of one or two of their more gifted players, have seen Motherwell deservedly sitting just below the Old Firm in the SPL’s third spot. But the question now is, can they sustain it after what’s happened to their captain?

I know that it’s highly unlikely to happen, but what a perfect response it would be if Motherwell now went out and won the championship this season. What a fantastic tribute that would be to O’Donnell, as well as giving the Scottish game the shot in the arm that it so badly needs.

Obviously there won’t exactly be a rush of people heading down to the bookies to place bets on this happening, but seriously, they probably could achieve this if it wasn’t for the usual variables that conspire against non-Old Firm sides when they’re on a good run. The biggest problem, like we’ve said on here before, is the in-built mentality amongst Scottish people that they are inferior to Rangers and Celtic, even if when you look at their teams these days, they really are no great shakes any more. This tends to come from the top down, and if you look at various managers of SPL sides currently and also years gone by and listen to the way that they talk about the game up here, you can easily see why no other club has seriously broken this duopoly for such a long time. Jimmy Calderwood is the perfect illustration of this – just listen to him practically foaming at the mouth over how wonderful a team that Rangers are the next time they play Aberdeen…..and how fantastic a result it will have been if his team managed to get a point from the match. There really is no hope for your team if the management has this sort of mentality is there?

It’s therefore no surprise that the only side in recent times to have threatened the perennial top two, our own club Hearts, were led by an almost entirely foreign regime with a manager who had been away from the Scottish game for a good number of years, when they managed to finish second and win the Scottish Cup in 2006. They didn’t have this inferiority complex and that enabled them to see their opposition for what they were, rather than what they were perceived to be. I believe that this is a huge factor in sport.

But from what I’ve seen of Mark McGhee so far at Motherwell, he could well be another exception to the rule, in perhaps a similar mould to George Burley at Tynecastle a couple of years ago. Here is a man who has also been away from the Scottish game for some years now and who appears to have an entirely fresh approach to preparing his team, irrespective of the opposition. I’ve been very impressed by the way that he has handled himself and guided those around him through such a difficult time in the past couple of weeks, at least from what I’ve seen publicly anyway. If he can somehow get his players in the right frame of mind then you never know, perhaps he is the sort of manager who could mastermind a surprise this season, even if it is his team only breaking into second place rather than actually winning the league.

Either way, I wish Mark McGhee and Motherwell all the best for the remainder of the season……..apart from tomorrow afternoon of course!