THE prospect of leading Motherwell from the dugout against St Mirren this afternoon isn’t fazing Fir Park assistant manager Keith Lasley. In fact, he’s becoming rather a dab hand at it.
He is certainly getting a fair bit of practice, with the latest touchline ban meted out to Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson during the week seeing him banished to the stand for the three matches leading up to the winter break, with a further two suspended until next season.
Lasley’s first taste of flying solo in the technical area went rather well, with the television cameras panning to him at Hampden during Motherwell’s League Cup semi-final last season seconds before Louis Moult lobbed the ball over Rangers goalkeeper Jak Alnwick to clinch his side’s place in the final. All his idea, of course.
“Hopefully the camera’s will pan in on me on Saturday and something like that will happen again,” laughed Lasley.
“I don’t want to go into the manager’s disciplinary record too much, but we’ve managed this situation before. We’ve got experience of it.
“I won’t be different to how I am in any other game, I’ll probably just be standing six yards further forward from where I usually am. Nothing will change in terms of my demeanour or what I provide on a matchday.
“It’s about making sure the players are as prepared as possible, they are the important ones on the other side of the white line, not me, and they will be ready to go for a big week.”
Lasley wouldn’t be drawn on the merits of Robinson’s ban, but he admits his absence will be a blow.
“I’m not going to comment on the actual process, but any team would prefer their manager to be on the touchline,” he said.
“He’s the leader of the team and the players along with all of us would prefer him to be there.
“We’re not the only club to suffer from that this season, and I’m sure we won’t be in the second half of the season either.
“But the players will all know their jobs when they cross that white line on Saturday, and it will just be a case of tweaking things during these three matches.”
It has been a largely disappointing opening half of the campaign for Motherwell so far despite the odd surprise result here and there, but if they win against St Mirren, they will move 12 points clear of their opponents.
“It’s a big incentive for us,” Lasley said. “We always knew this week was going to be a big one with two home games and then a derby against Hamilton which is always a great occasion.
“Tomorrow is a big game for us, and we know that if we can come out of this week favourably then we can probably legitimately start looking at the teams above us, which is a big carrot.”
Meanwhile, St Mirren defender Anton Ferdinand is taking heart from the great escape he was involved in at West Ham back in 2007, when a dramatic win over Manchester United at Old Trafford kept them up, as he assesses his current side’s chances of pulling themselves clear of the relegation battle in the second half of the campaign.
“We were in the bottom three round Christmas and a lot of people say the bottom two don’t come out of it, and we managed to do that.
“We galvanised ourselves, we had talks in our changing room, and anyone who wasn’t on the same page as our skipper and senior boys were on, they were no longer involved.
“I’m not saying we drastically need to do stuff like that, but that’s what happened at West Ham and it boded well for us and we ended up staying up.”
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