It may be cliché.
But for Motherwell it’s the cold, hard truth.
Stuart McKinstry insists that Saturday’s home game against Ross County is like a cup final.
The Steelmen sit tenth in the Premiership on 19-points – just three above The Staggies who are the current basement boys.
The last time the sides met, Steven Hammell’s men thumped Malky Mackay’s team 5-0 in Dingwall. Since then, the Fir Park outfit have been on a dismal run. They’ve recorded just one win, with three draws and eight defeats.
The latest loss came against Hibs on Sunday, as Kevin Nisbet inspired the visitors to three points. It ensured that Motherwell’s poor home record continued, while it firmly kept them in the bottom positions of the table.
McKinstry insists Saturday’s game is a must win over County. However, the on-loan Leeds attacker refused to be drawn on any potential relegation battle.
After scoring against Hibs, the 20-year-old said: “I’ve heard people say so many times in the past that their next game is like a cup final but this really is. We can’t walk away from it with anything less than three points.
“We have to remain positive – that’s all we can do. We need to stop giving goals away while taking our chances at the other end when they come: that’s the kind of performance which should give us the three points.
“There’s pressure in every single game, no matter whether it’s at Fir Park or away. Our fans will be there wherever it is but, obviously, our home record isn’t great. We’ll have to take ownership of that and realise that it hasn’t been good enough.
“County is a game that we need to win. We beat them 5-0 in Dingwall in October but that seems a long time ago now. However, we’re still in the same season so not too much has changed.
“That’s the way we should be looking at this match and thinking that we can go and do that again in front of our own fans this time and give them the boost they deserve.
“I’m not going to talk about that (relegation battle). There’s still a long way to go and we need to focus on putting some points on the board because we know what we can do as a team – we just need to start showing it when it matters.
“We need to get behind the manager and we need to repay him on the pitch because he’s put a lot into the squad. We need to prove to him that we can do what he wants us to do.”
Reflecting on Sunday’s disappointing home defeat, McKinstry insists that while Nisbet was on fire, ‘Well did not do nearly enough to make it a tough afternoon for him.
He added: “It was a game we should have taken something from, 100 per cent. When our first goal went in it gave us the lift we needed but once again we conceded sloppy goals, which shouldn’t really happen.
“Those goals killed the game because it gave them the opportunity to sit in and do what they had to do to take the three points.
“Giving away cheap goals is something we keep doing and it needs to stop quickly. You could say that, on Sunday, Kevin Nisbet scored a hat-trick against us without being put under any pressure.
“His goals were pretty easy. I’m not taking anything away from what he did but each one of them was sloppy from our point of view and we cannot keep doing this.
“It’s something that’s been happening all season and I’m not talking just about our defenders because it’s about us as a team, a unit.
“We need to be able to defend from the front and sometimes it hasn’t been like that. But we need to stop the rot because it’s killing games for us and reducing our chances of winning and collecting points.”
