This is an excerpt from this week's Claret and Amber Alert, a free Motherwell newsletter written by Graeme McGarry that goes out every Thursday at 6pm. To sign up, click here.
I was fortunate enough to be invited into hospitality for the match last Saturday, with my very thoughtful friend Davie astutely observing that it might take a pint or four for me to get through the game.
Us journos do love a freebie, after all, but somehow, I still came home feeling as though I'd been short-changed.
It wasn’t a pretty watch, improved as the display was from the previous week’s underwhelming showing against Partick Thistle. At least there was the odd chance carved out against Ross County, and one or two glaring ones at that.
Unfortunately, a combination of poor finishing from Zach Robinson and Moses Ebiye, and some good goalkeeping from Ross Laidlaw, ensured that the Fir Park faithful were subjected to their second goalless draw in succession.
Just like last week, many of them made their feelings plain at the final whistle, with boos ringing out around the stadium. On the face of it, there may seem to be a whiff of entitlement about such a reaction on the opening day of the season, but I can certainly see why some punters were cheesed off by what they had witnessed, and shared some of their frustrations.
There are of course many mitigating factors for the team’s rather lacklustre showing in attack. The players are still getting up to full sharpness. Robinson, having not scored a goal since the tail-end of January in a Dundee win over Livingston, looks short of confidence when he is presented with a chance. Apostolos Stamatelopoulos made his debut off the bench, but will likely take time to get up to speed.
There were frustrations around me too about the set-up being too negative, as well as the substitutions, and there is validity to both points. Just as pertinent though is the lengthy injury list that is hamstringing (see what I did there?) the way that the team functions.
The news about Sam Nicholson’s long-term absence through a patella injury is particularly unwelcome on the back of the Ross County display, with a gaping Blair Spittal-shaped hole in the side leaving the midfield short of someone to really link with the attack.
That mix in the middle of the park, with three players in Lennon Miller (who is a doubt for Hampden on Saturday now too), Andy Halliday and Davor Zdravkovski all essentially trying to do the same job, is far from ideal.
Ross Callachan was the man brought on at the weekend for Miller to try and bring something different, but he too will now be out for several months after picking up an injury. It makes you wonder if the Thunderdome era under Stephen Robinson been reintroduced to Dalziel Park.
When it comes to injuries, sometimes you just have to curse your luck. You can do everything right, your preparation can be ‘meticulous’, as Stuart Kettlewell argued today, and yet you end up picking up a spate of them.
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Sometimes, though, you also have to play the odds, and maybe by taking risks on players such as Callachan – who spent the entirety of last season on the sidelines – and even the likes of Jon Obika before him, you leave yourself open to the risk that things like this might happen.
On the flip side, you have guys like Shane Blaney without any great history of injuries also being ruled out for a few weeks after sustaining ligament damage in the draw with County.
It leaves Motherwell at least eight first team players down and limping into Hampden to face Rangers at the weekend, a game where the defensive solidity of this side will be put to the test.
In some ways, then, it might not be the worst fixture for Motherwell to have up next. I won’t be reading too much into the 6-0 friendly hounding at the hands of a strong Everton side on Tuesday, but looking at the games against Thistle and County, the only real positives from them were the clean sheets.
The manager seems to have looked at the stats from last season, where Motherwell were the third-highest scorers in the division but only three teams conceded more goals than they did, and decided to remedy the leaky defence. What that has cost in an offensive sense is another question, but the backline does appear to have a more solid look about it in the early knockings of the campaign.
I wouldn’t underestimate the impact an imposing goalkeeper like Aston Oxborough can have on that, and he has looked assured in the last couple of games. Liam Gordon looks to be a good addition as well, bringing leadership and aggression to the heart of the defence.
Perhaps even the James Webb telescope would struggle to find positives in the last two matches, but I’m giving it a go, and it is that defensive organisation I’m hanging my hat on to get Motherwell through a tricky few weeks.
Captain Paul McGinn and Kofi Balmer can come into the mix too, and it looks the one area of the park where Motherwell have real depth at the minute.
The trip to Hampden to face Rangers is followed by games against Kilmarnock in the League Cup and Hearts at Fir Park. It’s a tough sequence, and draws into focus just how costly the failure to beat Ross County - a side who picked up just eight points on the road in the whole of last season - might be.
I’m holding off on the boos, if not the booze, just for now though. Chances are, I might well need it over the coming weeks.
