MOTHERWELL: The battle to keep his team in the Europa League isn�t the only fight this outspoken manager has taken up, finds Michael Grant. He�s also gunning for onfield thuggery

JIM Gannon doesn't suffer fools gladly. He isn't a man who will back down from a fight. He doesn't much care for people he reckons are taking liberties. No sooner had he been introduced as the manager of Motherwell than he was unloading about a subject he sees as a scar on football: serious injuries caused by deliberately violent play. He doesn't much care for thugs and bullies.

Scottish football has already inflicted one grave wound on Gannon. He was in the job for only three days before he witnessed his new team losing 1-0 at home to Llanelli in Thursday's opening Europa League qualifier. Saving their European campaign, and their reputation, is the priority now.

Gannon has this Thursday's second leg in Wales to avoid another 100 lashes from the Scottish football media. It was easy to feel sympathy for him in the Excelsior Stadium as he was asked questions about the embarrassment, the utter humiliation, of losing to Welsh part-timers. He had to field one question about whether it was his worst result in management. Gannon tried to put on his best "let's keep this in perspective" face. It amounted to a crash course in appreciating the expectations - realistic or otherwise - which come with being the manager of an SPL club. Gannon will learn those in time, and while that is happening the SPL will learn about a ballsy, outspoken, uncompromising manager. His time at Motherwell isn't going to be dull.

Take his attitude to deliberately physical, excessively aggressive play: "Whether I'm the manager, or a father, or a person in society, I think we should always speak out against violence," he said. The coming weeks will gradually reveal the sort of personality Motherwell have appointed as Mark McGhee's successor but he isn't going to be the shy, retiring type.

Some fabulous verbal fights are in the pipeline. When he felt opponents were trying to intimidate and manhandle his players at Stockport County, he let them know about it with both barrels.

"We had a number of managers who thought the only way to stop our young lads playing was with strong-arm tactics," he said. "What you are relying on against this is a strong referee. If you have an opponent with a hard-hitting mentality, and a soft referee, then you know your players are going to get injured. So you speak out against that because you want people to realise that it may well be a problem in the game."

Gannon spoke of a young player at Stockport whose career was "abruptly ended by a horrendous challenge" and knew that this time last year Motherwell's Brian McLean "was the victim of almost an assault on the pitch" in a pre-season friendly against the Romanian side, Cluj. It put McLean out of football for eight months. Gannon and Stockport contemplated reporting Colchester United player Paul Reid to the police for an aerial challenge which left Matty McNeill unconscious, having to be stretchered off and hospitalised.

"I am like a father figure to my players. I've seen players kicked all over the pitch and coming off injured and it disappoints me that other managers have that stance. But obviously they are in fear of their jobs or it's the nature of their position on how they want the game to be played.

"In terms of the culture in which we want to play the game, the culture we want our kids to grow up in, we should try to end violence in sport. There are too many players whose careers have been ended, unfortunately, and too many young players who have not been allowed to enjoy the game and experience and develop because of the nature of the English first and second divisions. I was a centre-half myself. I know there's contact in the game. I know that there are incidents. But we want to cut out the intimidation and violence that is there almost as a tactic from some teams.

"The English game, the Scottish game and the Irish game have always been noted for their passion and aggression. I don't want to see that lost. What I want to see is an element of control, touch and composure. Then you will have a real good mix of qualities."

So that's what Gannon wants to see. What he has actually witnessed so far has been two matches against part-time Welsh teams, both of which Motherwell lost. A 3-1 friendly defeat against Rhyl last weekend would have been irrelevant were it not for Gannon's withering comments about it. He had thought the players poor, with poor athleticism, poor quality on the ball, little penetration and not enough stature throughout the team. At least they seemed receptive to his coaching, he said.

He has no David Clarkson, no Stephen Hughes, no Paul Quinn, no Maros Klimpl, no Bob Malcolm, no Cillian Sheridan. Instead he had to throw in Steven Saunders, 18, Ross Forbes, 20, and Jamie Murphy, 19, from the start and Robert McHugh, 17, and Paul Slane, 17, from a bench which also contained Sebastian Kosiorowski, Darren Smith, Marc Fitzpatrick, Shaun Hutchinson and Jonathan Page.

The threadbare inexperience of the Motherwell squad and their relative lack of fitness - Llanelli, although only part-time, had been back in training two weeks earlier - left them vulnerable to exactly the sort of outcome which had them being booed off the park by the 4300 supporters who travelled to Airdrie for the first leg.

Llanelli were seasoned and physical and not afraid to go in hard on Gannon's young side, but the first leg was lost because Motherwell lacked the nous to break down a reasonably well- organised and stuffy opponent. They had too few senior players who could save the game.

"This is the thinnest first-team squad I've ever seen, ever been involved in," said left-back Steven Hammell. "There's something like 10 first-team players and we're asking young boys to come in and do a job. I think they did that but it does take its toll when good players leave. We lost a lot of goals with Clarkie and big Ports Clarkson and Chris Porter going.

"You feel for the gaffer because the players should be maybe winning these matches and we don't want him to be coming in and losing his first games. I don't think you can point the finger at him. He has been great with the boys. Hopefully he will give us all the chance to show him what we can do.

"The gaffer has seen two games against part-time Welsh teams and we've been beaten twice. There's no way we should think we are doing enough. But I still believe we will go through and hopefully the rest of the boys do too, and we will go down there and do it."

Gannon isn't going to take it quietly if they fail.