The light relief will arrive in the last full week of the month when we play Brechin City in the 3rd round of the CIS Cup. Many Motherwell fans will see The Hedge for the first time when we travel to Angus but it would be a major shock if we don’t make it to the quarter finals.
There are three SPL games ahead, St Johnstone next Saturday in Perth then Aberdeen arrive for the only game of the month at Fir Park and finally a trip to Tynecastle on the 25th.
We took four points from our two visits to McDiarmid Park last season and with the Saints are already at the bottom of the table we have to be in with a shout for three points next week. We’ll have to hope that Craigan’s heroics with Northern Ireland don’t take too much out of his legs but with the majority of the squad rested we should be in top form.
Mark McGhee will bring his Aberdeen team to Motherwell for the first time in almost a year. Despite an early goal from Jutkiewicz that game finished 1-1. We’ll be without Lukas this time and we’ll be facing a team that won its first two SPL outings. The outcome of this game will be a good indicator of our prospects for the rest of the year. Aberdeen are likely to be in competition for a top six place and we need to better them on our own patch if we are to have the upper hand.
The month will finish with a journey along the M8 to Edinburgh. Jim Jeffries has reshaped Hearts and he’ll be hoping to reverse the 2-0 drubbing we handed them when we played them in April. That win made us favourites to finish above them in the league and led to a five point gap at the end of the campaign. Any win away from home is valued but Motherwell fans regard a win over Hearts with special affection.
How will we fare in September? We should end the month with the prospect of a quarter final tie in the CIS Cup and a minimum of four points from the three league games. Anything short of that would suggest that we’ll struggle to finish in the top half.