Motherwell interim boss Stuart Kettlewell says he has nothing to prove as he takes the club on an interim basis.
Kettlewell enjoyed a degree of success while he was Ross County boss, and feels that a lot of his achievements were overlooked.
But he says his situation at Motherwell is simple – if he’s offered the job on a permanent basis he will consider it, and if he isn’t, there will be no hard feelings.
As he prepares the side for tomorrow’s Premiership clash against St Mirren at Fir Park, Kettlewell says he knows how to do this.
He said: “The brutally honest answer is that if the football club thought I was the right fit for this job and they thought I was the right guy for this job, I would certainly take it into consideration.
“If they don’t? I have a role here of developing young players, that was the job I came in to take, fully focused on and fully intent on trying to do it for a period of time and get success.
“I’m not trying to be arrogant in any way – I like to think that my CV shows that development side has been a big part of my make-up as a coach and as a manager.
“At first-team level I felt I was pretty successful in developing players, and with that came a degree of success.
“But if the board and the chairman don’t feel that I was the right fit for it and they want to look somewhere else, that’s fine.
“I’m not pitching myself forward for this job, I’m not about being a salesman or trying to audition for anything.
“You have to be specific with this as well, it’s not just a generic ‘let’s throw someone in and do a job’, it has to be what the club want for their culture and how they want to try and move the club forward.
“If I fit with that, it might be something that I would consider. If it doesn’t, there’s no ill feeling in any way, shape or form.”
Kettlewell added: “I don’t think I need to prove anything. I don’t want to sound arrogant but I won a championship at the first time of asking, the Challenge Cup, so we won two trophies in the same year, kept the club in the Premiership during a pandemic, whilst saving a club millions of pounds.
“My job and my remit was to bring in players, improve them, sell them, reduce a budget right across the board from what it ever was, and in the parameters that I was working at I think there was a large degree of success.”
Kettlewell admits it’s difficult to come in after Steven Hammell left at the weekend, but says he and the players owe it to the club to pick things up.
He said:” I’ve stepped in when times have been hard and a football club has been at the bottom end of a table, so I know what it feel like. I know how the place feels, how the football club feels.
“I’m a little bit against this false energy, this idea of a manager is out the door – personally I’m hurting about that, because it’s somebody who showed a trust in me when I had been out the game for a long period of time.
“But what we have to do, and what we owe this football club, is that we have to pick ourselves up.
“I know Steven would want us to try and move in the right direction, even if it’s just for a couple of days until we can get some sort of stability.
“I’ve been asked to do a job, I’ve accepted that job. Whether I saw it coming or wanted the scenario, I’ve accepted that.
“If I didn’t think I could do that and get some form of reaction, I would have told the football club ‘no’.
“I see a group of players hurting and I’ve been in this position as a player, coach and as a manager, so you get a sense of what it takes to try and get one result.
“I’ve told the players that it’s three days, that’s all it is, and the message from the football club is that we had a midweek game, so we have to try and do the best we possibly can.”
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