Blair Spittal says wins in the run-in to the World Cup break would give everybody at Motherwell a lift, and provide momentum for the next chunk of the season.
The Premiership takes a break from November 12 until December 17 for the World Cup in Qatar, and midfield ace Spittal would like his side to build up a head of steam before then.
Motherwell travel to Dundee United this afternoon to end a tough October that has seen them lose twice to Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final and league, with Premiership defeats against Hibs, Rangers and Aberdeen, with a solitary win against Ross County tucked in there.
Following their trip to Tayside, the Steelmen visit Hearts, host Celtic and travel to St Johnstone, and Spittal is looking at that period to pick up some points.
“It’s important that we get back to winning ways,” he said. “We have been going through a bit of a tough run at the minute.
“Results haven’t been what we wanted them to be, but at the same time we’ve played against some of the biggest teams in the country.
“I’m not saying we should be going into these games being all right about losing – we want to win every game.
“But it’s important that we go into the game at the weekend with a positive mind-set and look to get back to winning ways.”
Looking ahead to that pre-Qatar run, Spittal said: “It has been a challenging run, but that’s what happens in football.
“In the lead-up to this World Cup it’s going to be a season that we’ve not really experienced before, where there will be a pretty tight schedule in certain parts of the season – but we need to get through it.
“We need to get ourselves back in a positive mind-set and get momentum rolling.
“We want to go into every game and come out of it with something, and obviously that’s not happened in the last couple of weeks.
“But we’ve got an opportunity now to get ourselves a good bit of momentum, going into this break, and we don’t want to go into it on down spirits, we need to pick ourselves up.
“It would give us a lift to get a couple of wins in that period.
“The longer you go without a win, the more pressure gets put on you, but we see it as a chance to get back to putting in good performances and hopefully get the three points.
“It’s going to be one of those seasons again where everyone’s beating everyone, and a couple of wins can get you up there, but equally a couple of defeats can set you back a wee bit.
“So it’s important that we keep ourselves in amongst it.”
Former Dundee United star Spittal knows more than most that Tannadice is a difficult place to go to, but wants to start a run for his side.
“We know it’s going to be tough, it’s a tough place to go and play football,” he said, “but we know that if we up our performance levels from the last two games we’re confident we can go up there and get the win.
“Dundee United are similar to us, in terms of an early managerial change, and it took a wee bit of time to get them going, but in the last couple of weeks they’ve picked up a wee bit.
“But it’s important that we concentrate on what we do, going into the game on Saturday.
“We know what we’ve got in the changing room, and we’ll be looking to go up there and get a result.”
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