Stuart Kettlewell reckons Motherwell should embrace the challenge posed by Celtic and Rangers, rather than feeling sorry for themselves over a hectic festive schedule.
Kettlewell watched his side lose 4-0 at Celtic Park on Boxing Day, and must get his squad back on track as they host second-placed Rangers on Sunday.
But rather than feeling sorry for themselves, the Fir Park gaffer says they should embrace the challenge.
He said: “We need to try and get into this mind-set. What’s our aspiration, what’s our ambition as a group of players, staff and club, and for me that’s to test yourself against the best.
“I think if you have any fear or trepidation in that, there’s no point in turning up, there’s no point in being there, or in this environment.
“My challenge to the players, staff and myself is that you have to embrace that.
“If you play at the highest level you have to play every three days. We must have aspirations of seeing if we can push ourselves to the absolute limit in this league, and what might be the fruits of that, which might be playing in Europe and these types of things.
“I believe you have to be robust, you have to be able to put yourself out there continuously, and find a level of consistency.”
Kettlewell added: “At the start of the season, when the fixtures come out, there are a couple of key dates that people look for – Christmas, New Year, what’s your first game, or how do you finish before you go into the split.
“The one thing that was a fact was this was how the fixtures were going to land, so definitely don’t feel sorry for ourselves.
“Try and take the good bits that we had yesterday, and I think there was plenty of that to a point, but we have to play with a wee bit more bravery in possession. I believe we have to carry the fight that wee bit more and stay in possession longer.
“There are aspects we have to take from yesterday, try to improve on and see if we can tweak that over the next couple of days.
“But it’s a very different game, with the fact that it’s at home against a different opponent, but equally a very good one.
“My message is: go and embrace the task, embrace the challenge.”
Kettlewell says there is an illness in the squad, while striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos and defender Liam Gordon are struggling.
But he hinted that captain Paul McGinn was on his way back.
Kettlewell said: “We’ve had one illness reported this morning, I don’t think it’s anything too significant.
“Apostolos picked up a bit of a knock, and I think he’ll be OK. He went into a tackle with Carter-Vickers, a pretty full-blooded tackle, the two of them were 50-50, and he had a little bit of a complaint, but I’m hoping he’ll be OK.
“We managed to get another full training session with Paul McGinn, so that’s his third with the group, which is great for us.
“He’s looking good. I see Paul as slightly different, sometimes you need two or three weeks to build up to players getting back in fully, but when you’ve played over 500 games you understand what you’re about, what the game’s about, and I’m hoping Paul can slip back in there, pretty seamlessly into the squad.
“On top of that we had been managing Liam Gordon, he had a bit of an issue last week against Kilmarnock, played the game, and we’ve just been trying to manage his game-time in there as well.”