Motherwell find themselves in a bit of Norman's land going into the late stages of the season. Sitting in 9th place in the league, MOT are unlikely to make a real challenge towards the top few places in the league. They are not too far clear of the relegation playoffs at the moment, so at least a decent showing in the league will be quite important. The financial incentive of reaching the top 6 is also key, so MOT will probably need to win over half of their matches in the league from here as a minimum threshold for success.

What about the SESL cup? An unfortunate cup group result sees MOT in the half of the bracket with many teams they would have liked to avoid. It is probably asking too much for lighting to strike twice in the same season - MOT will probably not be favored for this cup, despite their recent success.

So, where does that leave Motherwell? Probably in a space where manager Foss-Grant has found success in the past - picking their battles and doing their best to win the winnable matches and not waste EL in places where we are going to likely lose no matter what we do.

Generally, unless Motherwell have needed to train up a youth GK, the group stages of the SESL cup have been comfortable enough over the years to where not much is neesed from the last matchup. This year, with the splitting of the third and fourth fixture, we have a chance to reasses after 3 matches as well.

With 9 points from 3, Motherwell have officially qualified, given that the bottom two in the group have 1 and 0 points. This is great news for gaining some EL back for the league matches ahead. If the Motherwell manager had one gripe, it would be that we have failed to get a captain's bonus in any of the three matches, failing to find a third goal in either of the two matches where our captain played and we were up 2-0, and then winning big while our captain rode the bench. Alas.