Race to be best of the rest will be a close shave, insists McCall

Sports Writer

Thursday 25 October 2012

STUART McCALL reckons this season's Scottish Premier League is shaping up to be the most exciting one-horse race in history.

Stuart McCall goes for the Grandpa Broon look at Fir Park yesterday ahead of the club's participation in Movember . . .

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Stewart Fisher

The Motherwell manager was hugely impressed by Celtic's performance in Camp Nou on Tuesday night, as they lost out in injury time to the Catalan giants, and reluctantly admits that stopping the Parkhead side domestically is becoming as daunting a prospect for other SPL clubs as facing Barcelona in the Champions League was for Neil Lennon's side.

Celtic are hitting full stride after some misfiring early season form, but ahead of Motherwell's detour into Friday night football against Hibs, they and pretty much every other team has an interest in the race for the bounty on offer for second place, or at least one of the guaranteed three Europa League spots. "Everyone has their own budget, even if people don't want to hear it," said McCall, who sported a fake moustache to promote the club's main backers Cash Converters' backing of cancer charity Movember. "I'm not defeatist but realistic – Celtic will walk the league. The early part – when the pressure was on to get into the Champions League and they were playing some young lads – might have been the best time to get them. Now they've got all their players back."Neil has said that the pressure was there just to get through to the Champions League group stages," he added. "The players would take their eye off the ball because psychologically they know they have got another 30 games and with the squad we have got they will catch up the points, no problem. But outwith that there is going to be a heck of a battle for the European places and I think that will go right down to whoever is 10th or 11th at the moment. "If you can put your first XI out, most managers in the league would be pretty confident about getting a result about any other team in the league apart from Celtic. The teams that will probably end up higher are the ones with the stronger squads, and that is Aberdeen and St Johnstone. Otherwise it will take a team who are very lucky, like we were last year, who are going to be able to play just 13 or 14 players."A narrow defeat by Hearts in midweek means that the Fir Park side haven't won for four weeks, but visitors to the Motherwell-Hibs fixture at Fir Park are usually guaranteed fireworks of some sort. Quite apart from the Friday night match in December which had to be abandoned at half time due to a small fire, the last five Lanarkshire meetings between these two have spawned a total of 30 goals, including a 4-3 last season, and an all-time classic 6-6 encounter on a Wednesday night in May 2010 in which the hosts clambered back into the match from 4-1 and 6-2 down. That match pre-dated McCall's arrival, but he remembers watching it with his family and finding himself being drawn to it in preference to a Champions League semi-final on the same night. "That night there was some great Champions League football on and maybe a big English game, too," McCall said. "Hand on my heart, I remember sitting with my lad and flicking over to the Motherwell game. He was urging me to turn it back but a goal went in – and then another one. So we sat and watched the game. "There were some great goals in there – and a missed penalty as well. We won a cracker 4-3 against them last season, while there was also a great 2-2 in the League Cup before they won on penalties. So, hopefully Friday will be another exciting one – with a home win of course."A selection of Motherwell players will be growing a tash and their sponsors will be changing the logo on their shirts for the month to mark the global charity Movember – who raise awareness of prostate and testicular cancer. They have set-up their own JustGiving page with more information at www.tashconverters.co.uk.

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Race to be best of the rest will be a close shave, insists McCall

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