Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell says they won’t “ever have the deckchairs out” if they beat Livingston on Saturday, and says nobody will be on holiday.
The Fir Park gaffer actively bristled when it was suggested that his side could relax, should they take a win on Saturday that would leave them just three points behind their seventh-placed opponents.
Kettlewell says he wants his players to be on it until the final whistle blows on the season, and if they relax, that’s how things slip.
He said: “I absolutely detest that. This is where I go strong: at no point does a club like Motherwell ever have the deckchairs out and think that it’s holiday time.
“I spoke about this two weeks ago when it was an international break about how it would be a working week, and it was.
“I think we reaped the benefits from that in our performance against Hibs.
“People pay their money to come and watch us on a weekly basis, so it’s important that we act professionally throughout, no matter what happens on Saturday, or beyond that, or up until that last game of the season.
“The demands that will be made from me to the players is that we go out and actively try to win three points in the remaining eight games that we have between now and the end of the season.
“That message won’t change. I think if you start to feel comfortable, if you start to feel that you can let your hair down or your standards drop, that’s exactly the product you will get out of it.
“I genuinely mean it, those are the demands that will be put from me to the players right up until the very last whistle of the season, come what may.”
Kettlewell has taken Motherwell from a position where relegation was more than a murmur, and got them well clear of the scrapping pack at the bottom, but says that has taken a lot of hard work.
“I think we all have to be in the knowledge of how much we were kicked when we were down as well,” he said.
“When I say that, that doesn’t mean that we’re out the woods by any stretch of the imagination.
“Rightfully so, people were questioning us as a club and the results that we were producing, loads of different facets of the game, how we were performing and all that sort of stuff, and we can never forget that.
“Don’t forget that you don’t want that feeling. I encourage the players to remember the feeling they get when they come in after a win, and to enjoy that, and just keep looking to try and repeat it.
“What I don’t want is for people to forget what we’ve actually done over this stretch.
“We haven’t achieved anything, we haven’t done anything, but it can be very easy for people to think that was what was expected.
“A lot of work has gone in to try and get us in the position we’ve got ourselves into, taking 13 points out of 18, since I’ve been in, but I want to continue that.
“I want to try and see if we can get a really good points total at the end of the season.”
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