Motherwell manager Graham Alexander is delighted to see Declan Gallagher and Stephen O’Donnell back in the Scotland squad – and he thinks QPR loanee Liam Kelly could soon join them.
The ‘Well’s defensive pair have each been a mainstay in the Scotland team under Steve Clarke but there were calls for Kelly to be reintroduced to his squad ahead of World Cup qualifying this month. Since arriving from QPR in January, the goalkeeper has been immense for Motherwell, winning February’s Player of the Month award at Fir Park.
While delighted for Gallagher and O’Donnell, former Scotland international Alexander believes Kelly isn’t far away: “The two boys have done fantastic for Scotland in achieving qualification for Euro 2020 and they deserve to be in that squad.
“Obviously Steve Clarke is rewarding them with continued inclusions in the squads and they deserve it. They have been brilliant in the time I have been here but for Scotland it’s been over a longer period.
“They have never let their country down and it’s a great privilege to be in the Scotland squad. It’s great for us as a club and we are chuffed, it’s brilliant to see our players achieving success. Hopefully they are picked in the games and show what they can do leading to Euro 2020, which is a massive carrot at the end of the season.
“I’m not surprised (that Liam Kelly wasn’t included) but there are more than 23 good players to choose from. Steve Clarke has done a brilliant job in creating the environment of somewhere everybody wants to go.
“He has a much-bigger pool of players to pick from and he will know, like the good manager he is, that’s he got a good group of players outside the group he has picked this time.
“Liam is certainly one of those as his performances for us have been fantastic. The way he is around the club, when I talk about the will to win, he is the epitome of that. We need that here and I’m sure the opportunity will come for Liam in the future. I am sure he’ll grasp it.”
Motherwell travel to Kilmarnock on Saturday in Scottish Premiership action. While a win could edge the Steelmen to only a few points from safety, Alexander is warning his players against complacency.
He said: “I expect fight, I think we’ve seen that certainly in the last five or six games; each game has been fiercely fought and the battle has been there to overcome – I don’t think Saturday will be any different.
“We have to understand that we’re still in a fight, that’s the biggest thing, and we still have to fight to win points. We can’t let any team overcome us on the fight and commitment, and work-rate, which I’ve felt a few weeks ago they did, and we can’t let that happen again.
“We know Kilmarnock want the points, but no more than what we do. We want the points and need the points just as much as any other team. I think we had a really harsh reality lesson in the Hamilton and St Johnstone games, because I think we won three out of the previous four and people did start mentioning ‘top six’ and stuff like that, and I think we took our eye off the fight that we were in.
“We quickly realised that, thanks to the players, their work ethic and how they went about it, we realised we were still in a fight, and hopefully we will have learned that lesson from three or four weeks ago and we won’t expose ourselves in that way again.
“It’s important that we understand that every point is valuable to us, and that’s from now until the end of the season.”
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