He faced Everton and Carlo Ancelotti at the start of this season – and Motherwell manager Graham Alexander will show the respect he was given by the Italian to Formartine United.
Motherwell return to action on Saturday in the Scottish Cup third round. They travel to Highland League Formartine United, managed by former player Paul Lawson. While Salford City boss earlier this season, Alexander took the English League Two side to face Everton at Goodison.
Just like in that match with Everton, full respect will be shown, despite the difference in leagues: “I would like to think going into that game that he and his team were fully respectful of my team and myself, regardless of where we were in the league compared to his team. I will have the exact same respect for Formartine United.
“It’s a big thing in football that you respect all opponents. They are part-time, but I know from my own experience in the lower leagues that you put everything in and it means a lot. They will aim to make themselves look professional and we must overcome that.”
Motherwell still have some work to do in order to secure their Scottish Premiership status for next season, but Alexander says the Scottish Cup is a good break: “It’s an exciting challenge for us. All I have had to concentrate on since arriving is the league so this gives us a little break.
“We know this is a cup that is fiercely-fought for. Every Premiership team has ambition in this. We have to have the right mentality going into this. I speak regularly about the mental preparation for the game and we have possibly let ourselves down a couple of times by taking the opposition lightly. We concentrate on ourselves.
“We will be the favourites and I won’t shy away from that. I think the Brora Rangers v Hearts game is the biggest warning. It’s the most recent one too. If you don’t approach things properly in professional sport, you can come off second-best. We don’t want that to happen.”
Prior to the international break, Motherwell were struggling with numbers, several first-team players out with injury. But Alexander says some are back in training, although the Formartine trip is far from a training exercise.
He added: “The squad is good, people have come back into training. We have worked them really hard and that has continued this week. The squad is looking healthier than it was four weeks ago, we couldn’t even fill a bench. That isn’t the case now.
“It’s in a healthy state. We have a few senior players missing but at the moment we have a good healthy squad to pick from. But we will pick a team to win the game, not to prepare for anything else.
“I won’t think ‘let’s get minutes into people.’ We have to win this game, we can’t make any mistakes. The first thing we think of is the best team to win this game and we aren’t thinking ahead to any other game.”
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