There have been a lot of spooked folk around Motherwell of late, unnerved by a lower than expected league position and wary now of the prospect of fresh financial uncertainty.

Worse still, the place appears haunted: locals whisper that there have been sightings of some long since departed.

Two weeks ago, David Clarkson - once beloved of the home fans - scored at Fir Park for Dundee after three minutes to further sink the spirits of his former club. Another former player, Mark Reynolds last week was resolute in the Aberdeen defence as they kept a clean sheet against last season's great rivals.

Now comes the hardest gut punch of them all: James McFadden, the club's proudest son of recent times, will line up for the first time in competitive action on All Hallows' Eve against the team in which his tricks were first a treat to behold. St Johnstone's new striker played against Motherwell once in a friendly - it was part of the deal that took him to Everton - but this is the first time he will be actively looking to stick the knife into the team he grew up with.

"This will be the first game against them that has actually meant anything," he admits. "It will be strange, but it's part of the job. I played against Everton when I went to Birmingham and Sunderland, but this is a wee bit different because Motherwell was the club where I started and I was there for years as a youth player. But there can't be room for any sentiment. We're the same as them - we need to start winning games."

Stephen McManus, the Motherwell defender who also has to take on his own boyhood club, Celtic, regularly, dismissed the romance of it all. "Listen, it's not something that's never happened before," McManus says. "It's another game, a chance for us to win three points. It's good to see he's back playing and I've no doubt he'll do well there. But for us it's not about who you're going to playing, it's about what we're going to do."

The prospect of facing McFadden is not all that there is to worry about. An email, leaked to a fans' forum and sent by the Well Society, the group focused on establishing community ownership, sent a fair few shivers down some Lanarkshire spines. Wary of a deadline set by the club - who say they cannot wait forever - to raise enough money, the society has made another appeal, to wealthy fans to provide loans so they can finally buy out John Boyle and take over. If they fail, the club will have to look for investment elsewhere.

The society has raised more than £500,000 but has stumbled well short of its initial £1.5m target. They were set another, by the board, of £800,000 by the end of November, and hoped to take out a soft loan to make up their shortfall. The Well Society have been informed, though - following early exits in Europe and the League Cup - that the agreed amount would no longer be able to provide enough security going forward. Talks continue, meetings are held and it is the society asking for help, not the club. But the dream, at least, may be in peril.

Against this backdrop, victory tonight would be a priceless fillip. There are obvious parallels between visitors and hosts. Tommy Wright lifted the Scottish Cup, Stuart McCall led his Motherwell side to be the best of the rest in the league, again. But both have since been out of sorts.

The Perth side are also out of the League Cup, with McFadden missing most of the defeat by Rangers on Tuesday, unable to play three games in a week as the knees continue to creak and moan. "I was desperate to play and I felt good on Monday," he says. "But I understood where the manager was coming from. If he'd asked me, I would have played but it was probably the right decision."

It is the second time in little more than a month he has watched a side be knocked out of that competition: he was at Motherwell's loss to Hamilton Academical in September. Those at Fir Park are keen to erase that horror, and the first 11 league games, from their memory. "Our season starts now," says McCall.

"It's going to be tough, but when you're struggling all the games are tough," says McManus. "Everybody will go through this in their career. If you don't, then you're extremely fortunate. The manager has been thorough in his approach to all the games this year. People take for granted how hard it is to play and find that level of consistency. Football never stands still."

Criticism of McCall has so far still been fairly muted, but there has been the odd dissenting voice amid the generally sympathetic reaction. "Unfortunately it's a results-driven business," McManus says, with a despairing shrug. "I never realised how good a job the manager had done until I was at this club. But sometimes there's a dip like this."

Like Motherwell, like St Johnstone. Fans have to take the rough with the smooth, the tricks with the treats. "At some point, it's got to level itself out," McFadden admits.