ASK any Motherwell supporter to describe Louis Moult in a word, and they will probably call him a legend. But a let-down? Not likely. That’s how the striker - a darling of the Fir Park crowd to this day – felt though as injury brought an abrupt end to what had promised to be a fairytale return to Lanarkshire.
Moult had arrived back in Scotland on a season-long loan from Burton Albion last September, but a niggling ankle problem stopped him from hitting the stratospheric heights he had managed to scale during his first spell at the club, when 50 goals across a two-and-a-half-year stay saw Motherwell fans take him to their hearts, and earned him a move to The Championship with Preston North End.
In truth, injuries have largely hampered Moult’s progress ever since, with a two-year layoff due to a cruciate ligament tear the nadir of a series of setbacks. It was perhaps why though, at 30 years of age last year, Motherwell were able to get him back to Fir Park at all.
Moult only wishes that he was able to do more to help former teammate Steven Hammell – by that time Motherwell manager - and the club to claw themselves away from the looming threat of relegation, something he is relieved to see they have since done under the stewardship of Stuart Kettlewell.
In fact, so concerned was he about the club he has grown to love, that he was prepared to come back and play for free after he had recovered from the ankle operation that cut short his second stint with the Steelmen.
On a personal note, it feels as though there is still some unfinished business for a now fully-fit Moult at Fir Park, news which will certainly prick the ears of Motherwell supporters on the back of his release from Burton Albion earlier this week.
“I spoke to Alan Burrows in detail when I was getting this niggly ankle problem, and we both agreed that for the best interests of the club, it would make sense to terminate the loan deal in January so we freed up that money,” Moult said.
“That’s what I wanted for the club. I love the football club and I wanted them to be able to sign some able players that could play and contribute. I totally got that.
“But I do feel like I have unfinished business there, because I came back and didn’t quite do as well as I wanted to because of the ankle injury.
“I think you could see that when I was feeling ok, like at Tynecastle and St Johnstone away, those were probably two of my best performances in a long time.
“I was feeling fine, I was injury free, but there on after it just started niggling away at me. I saw the specialist and he told me what needed to be done, and thankfully that has been done now.
“The potential was there, and I am gutted by the way it ended in terms of myself, but also the way it ended for Stevie Hammell. He’s a Motherwell legend, and he helped bring me back to the club along with Alan.
“I half feel like I’ve let these guys down and I’ve let the football club down. If I could ever repay their faith and Motherwell’s faith in me, I would do it.
“I remember saying in the back end of January to Alan that I would come back and play for free once I was fit. I was willing to do so to try and help Motherwell, because at that point in time it was looking like doom and gloom down at the bottom of the table. So, I said ‘let me have this operation and I’ll come back and play for free’, but it didn’t work out in the end.
“When I came back, I never really got the chance to play at Fir Park that much. I came on in one or two games, but I didn’t start a game, and I wanted that feeling back.
“I got glimpses of it with the fantastic away support that Motherwell take everywhere they go, but I didn’t get to start a game at Fir Park, and that was disappointing really.”
What was equally as frustrating for Moult and for the Motherwell fans is that the glimpses of a partnership blossoming between the forward and current star striker Kevin van Veen were all too fleeting, with Moult believing the pair could wreak havoc if paired together in the Premiership for a longer spell.
In fact, he would love nothing more than to pick up where he left off with Van Veen next season, though he concedes the biggest obstacle to that may be the club being able to keep a hold of the Dutchman beyond the summer.
“I still speak to Kev, I keep congratulating him on all his goals that he’s scoring!” he said.
“The new manager is there now, and he was probably there for about a month when I was there, but not really with the first team.
“He seems to have got them playing in a very similar way to what we used to [under Stephen Robinson] to be honest, with the 3-5-2 and the two strikers, and Kev is obviously capitalising on that because they are getting the ball forward quicker to him.
“I got on really well with Kev. I’ve come across a lot of players in the past where it can be awkward between two strikers, but me and Kev got on really well both on and off the pitch.
“Given more game time together, I really feel like we would have struck up a great partnership, because we were on a very, very similar wavelength.
“Against Hearts you got to see that for about 30 or 40 minutes, and that wasn’t me as a fully fit Louis Moult. I’d like to think that if I had a full pre-season in me, that would just flourish.
“You have to take your hat off to what Kev has done, scoring all the goals that he has and at times, he has carried the football club this season, because at one point it really did look like doom and gloom.
“Where would they be without him? Full credit to him, I wish him all the best, and everyone else at the club too.
“You never know what’s going to happen in football, there’s a lot to it and it’s never as simple as just wanting things to happen. It’s been well documented that Kev will probably have a lot of options this summer, which is fantastic for him and for the football club.
“Let’s just wait and see what happens over the next couple of months. I’ve been training for around 12 weeks now, so I am happy to be back fit and feeling fine.
“I’m ready to see what the summer brings. I just want to play for a club and a manager that believes in me, and knows how to manage me.”
Moult certainly found that at Fir Park first time around with Robinson, and Mark McGhee before him.
Not even he could have foreseen though just how much success he would go on to have in some difficult early days just after being brought to the club by Ian Baraclough.
“When I first arrived, I couldn’t have imagined how it would end up going for me,” he said.
“I had a lot of time off coming up from Wrexham, whereas the other lads had not long come off the back of the play-offs against Rangers. So, they were all mega fit and I was struggling to keep up.
“We played some Dutch teams over in Holland and then we played Bradford, and then I played a part in a friendly against Preston at Livingston and managed to score. That helped my confidence, and I think I really needed that at the time.
“We played Inverness away on the first game of the season and Wes Fletcher started up front and scored in a 1-0 win. That period was probably one of the toughest periods of my time at Motherwell.
“It was all very new to me. I was very lonely. I was still getting to know people, my wife was still down south, so that was tricky.
“I was living in a hotel, then a temporary flat which Motherwell helped me out with, which I was very appreciative of. But I struggled to adjust really.
“I remember getting on for about 10 or 15 minutes in that Inverness game, and it was such a high tempo. I couldn’t catch my breath!
“I remember thinking that I had to get my head down and work as hard as I possibly could day-in and day-out to get myself up to speed for that season, and that’s what I did. I had to be quite patient, and I managed to get in the team after a few weeks.
“I scored against St Johnstone away a few games in, and I never looked back.
“There was a lot going on at the club though. Ian Baraclough brought me in, which I’m eternally grateful for, but he got the sack quite soon after really.
“I remember we had Morton away in the League Cup and I was on the bench, Lionel Ainsworth was on the bench, Scott McDonald too. To this day I don’t know if I was rested or dropped.
“We lost the game and there was an absolute hell-up. An almighty hell-up. I think that was the night I realised just how massive a club I had signed for, and how passionate the supporters were about it.”
And very soon, about him.
“I felt the love from day one, I really did,” he said.
“When I signed it was very unknown for me. I had never been to Scotland at all before I signed. When I joined, I saw all the welcome messages and that meant so much to me.
“Scoring always helps. If I was going to name one moment [when the fans took to me], then it was probably the goal against Hamilton where we were 1-0 down over there in a relegation battle.
“We had ten men, Lee Lucas had been sent off, and I managed to get an equaliser late on. I did a stupid knee slide on that astroturf, my knees were killing me after. But that moment and that celebration with the fans is something that will live with me forever.”
As will his most famous goals in claret and amber, his double in the League Cup semi-final against Rangers that included an outrageous chip over the head of Jak Alnwick and brought an end to Pedro Caixinha’s time at Ibrox. More pertinently for Moult, it was the game that perhaps convinced the watching Preston manager Alex Neil to take him back down south.
The immediate repercussions though mostly involved scrutiny of strike partner Ryan Bowman’s elbow to the face of Fabio Cardoso, but Moult is keen to point out that very little was said about the Rangers defender also catching him with a flailing arm during the contest.
“It was a very competitive game,” he said. “Let’s be honest, we were a very competitive team.
“We were very physical, we were very athletic, we played to our strengths, and it worked.
“From the outside looking in now, it looks like Motherwell have got back to that a bit, and that is why they are picking up a lot of points. That is what we were.
“A lot of the talk after the game was about Bowie’s elbows, and I was standing there with a butterfly stitch! I give it out, so that was fine. If anything, it helped me to get the goals, because it made me angry.
“I remember the lads all saying to me in the lead up to the game that it was written in the stars that I was going to score and we were going to win, the likes of Peter Hartley and Carl McHugh. I took that as a massive compliment, and it gave me confidence.
“The way it happened though, I couldn’t have dreamt that, I’ll be honest with you.
“When the time came to leave Motherwell and I got to say goodbye to everyone on the pitch at Fir Park, it was very emotional. I remember the rain was hammering down.
“I just remember speaking from the heart. I wanted to thank everybody for what they had done for me.”
Sadly for Moult, events outside his control didn’t quite allow him to take the next leap in his career that those Motherwell fans in attendance at Fir Park that day would have predicted. But at 31 now, and injury free, he can look back with satisfaction, while still looking ahead with hunger.
Whether it is at Fir Park or elsewhere, Moult is now focused on what could be, rather than what could have been.
“My wife says that to me sometimes to be honest, but I try not to think about it really, because it would probably upset me,” he said.
“I am incredibly proud of what I have achieved so far in my career. If you had said to me when I was a teenager that I would have made it to The Championship, scored a few goals in it too, I would have laughed at you if I’m honest.
“Not only that, scoring at Wembley, scoring at Hampden, scoring the goals I did against the Old Firm, I wouldn’t have believed you.
“I’m incredibly proud of what I have achieved in that sense, but I do feel that I’m not done yet. I really feel that I’ve still got the hunger, I just have to find the right place and the right manager who can manage me and understand me.
“I really feel that if that happens, someone could get the best out of me again, and I truly believe I could deliver again. I really, really do.”
