This is an excerpt from this week's Claret and Amber Alert, where Graeme McGarry gets excited about the return of Mika Biereth, and ponders the make-up of the Motherwell attack going forward.
To get our free Motherwell newsletter into your inbox every Thursday at 6pm, click here.
EVEN off the back of four defeats, and the last one being a truly abysmal affair, the postponement of the St Johnstone game last week hot on the heels of an international break has left Motherwell fans champing at the bit for the return of their team to action.
On the plus side though, the absence of club football has not only allowed hearts to grow fonder, but it has afforded key players the time to get back up to fitness, with Calum Butcher getting another week of training and a bounce game under his belt over the past few days.
The return of his composure to the defence will be most welcome, as will – and I mean this in the most complimentary way – his nasty streak. Call it a will to win, call it what you will, but you get the feeling Butcher would two-foot his own granny if it meant he would earn three points for his team.
This Motherwell side are full of nice guys and really good, technical footballers, and while I’m not suggesting that Butcher isn’t also these things, there is little doubt that he also balances that out by being a bit of a b*****d on the pitch too. A quality that shouldn’t be underestimated.
Another who is no shrinking violet on the field is Mika Biereth, and with the greatest of respect for Butcher (lest he read this), it is fair to say that it is the return of the on-loan Arsenal striker that has pulses racing a little bit faster among the fans.
Having been stung before by flash in the pan forwards who didn’t quite live up to early expectations, you can almost sense a reluctance among the Fir Park faithful to get too carried away by the prospective impact of the 20-year-old on their team.
But that stunning debut cameo off the bench against Hibs where he terrorised their defence, setting up the equaliser for Conor Wilkinson and scoring the winner by rag dolling Paul Hanlon, was a tantalising glimpse of his potential as a game changer.
The departure of Kevin van Veen has meant that for all the qualities of this Motherwell team, it has lacked that little bit of stardust in attack, and Biereth may just be the man to fill the Dutchman’s considerable boots.
Football is all about dreaming, so while manager Stuart Kettlewell won’t thank me for saying this as he tries to temper expectations on the young forward, I am fully on board the Biereth bus as the vehicle to correct the course of Motherwell’s season.
What is perhaps just as encouraging as the rare glimpses of Biereth in claret and amber have been, have been the reports from inside the club on what sort of character he is.
Coming from the comparatively cossetted world of the Arsenal set up, the fear may be that Biereth would see the charms of Lanarkshire and the level of the Scottish league as a little beneath him. But by all accounts, that could hardly be further from the truth.
Even when he returned south to take advantage of Arsenal’s facilities in rehabbing from his injury, Biereth has been in constant touch with Kettlewell and his Fir Park teammates, fully embracing the fact that – at least for now – he is a Motherwell player.
As the press assembled to speak to Kettlewell on Thursday morning, Biereth came bouncing into the stadium with a huge smile on his face, and he appears just as eager to get back out there and contribute to his team as the fans are eager to see if he can live up to the early hype around him.
He is unlikely to start against Ross County, given he will only have a handful of training sessions under his belt come Saturday, but he will be fit enough to play some part in the game off the bench at the very least. So, just an assist and a goal will be fine… It will be interesting to see how Kettlewell handles his forward line in the coming weeks, now that he will soon have five forwards to choose from in the shape of Biereth, Wilkinson, Theo Bair, Jon Obika and Oli Shaw.
Even in the small sample size we have to work with, there seemed to be something of spark between Biereth and Wilkinson that suggested they could work as a pairing. Wilkinson got his only league goal so far for the club after great set-up play from Biereth, after all, and he came within inches of scoring against St Mirren in the League Cup too from another Biereth centre.
It isn’t just the long hiatus then that has Motherwell fans eager for Saturday to come, and hopefully we are talking about another sensational Biereth cameo come next week.
