Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell is eyeing the chance to get a much-welcome bounce as his side prepare to face a Kilmarnock side who are still on a high from their European exploits.
Killie visit Fir Park in the Premier Sports Cup on Sunday in between trips to Norway and Denmark in the Conference League.
A 1-0 win over Tromso on Thursday saw Killie progress in Europe for the first time in 23 years and set up a play-off against FC Copenhagen.
Motherwell’s start to the season has been somewhat undermined by injuries with marquee signing Apostolos Stamatelopoulos taking the tally of unavailable players to eight when he suffered a quad problem on his first start.
Kettlewell has since signed Tony Watt – who is eligible to face Killie despite featuring for Dundee United in the group stage – and could yet add to his 12 summer signings.
But he knows progression against Killie could provide benefits on and off the park as Motherwell look to reach the quarter-finals.
Defeats at St Mirren and Morton prevented Kettlewell from taking Motherwell to the last eight of either cup competition at his first two attempts for knockout glory at Fir Park and he knows how important it could be to improve on that record.
“I’ve never hid from that,” he said. “I have spoken about the ways that you can improve financially at a football club, but I’ll run through them again. It’s player sales, which have been not bad over the last 12 months, and it’s about your league position and it’s about cup runs.
“You can start to talk about one or two things behind the scenes, but football-wise, plain and simple, that’s how you can start to grow as a football club.
“So the cup competition, this one in particular because it’s the one that’s here and now, is vitally important to us.
“But we’ve got a massive hurdle to overcome on Sunday. All our focus this week has purely been on Kilmarnock, has purely been on the game on Sunday to try and see if we can put a performance in that can advance us into the next round of the cup.
“Because it breeds positivity in everything you do. You can see how Kilmarnock are thriving off of the opportunity of getting into the next round of European competition.
“But it works the same domestically as well for your players’ confidence and for the buy-in from the supporters and everybody surrounding the football club.”
