Kai Andrews caught Stuart Kettlewell’s eye when he went head-to-head in a midfield battle with Motherwell skipper Lennon Miller for Wales U19s. Now the Well boss is looking forward to the day he can pair the teen duo shoulder-to-shoulder in the Steelmen’s engine room after completing a loan swoop for the Coventry ace.
Andrews became the first January arrival at Fir Park on Tuesday but the 18-year-old will have to wait to team up with Miller who is out injured with a fractured ankle.
Kettlewell reckons Well’s record of helping develop young loanees from down south including Mika Biereth, Brodie Spencer, Jack Vale and Georgie Gent played a big part in convincing the Sky Blues man to make the move to Lanarkshire. And he is confident he will have the same impact after watching him star for the young Dragons in a 1-0 win over Scotland at Forthbank back in November.
He said: “I would pitch Kai as an all-round midfield player. Good energy, good strength, good mobility and handles the ball well. I watched him against Scotland for Wales U19s. He really impressed me. I watched him against Lennon Miller and thought it was a really good contest between the two of them.
“Sometimes when you know the other player so well then it can catch your eye. You do a lot of homework, these ones excite me because of the age and the lack of experience. That maybe puts a lot of people off but the way my mind works I go the other way.
“We have been able to pick off a lot of really good first loans in recent years. We have so many good examples of how that works as long as you have faith in the player and continue to coach and develop them.
“Just throwing them into an environment and expecting them to be a player, it’s often not going to work for someone who has moved away from home and changed club in a couple of days. We almost have to treat them like one of our own academy players. That’s a selling point. I believe through our communication with other clubs that we are getting a bit of respect for that.
“There is a genuine belief we can help their progression, and with the likes of James Furlong, Marvin Kaleta, Georgie Gent, Brodie Spencer and Mika Biereth all coming up here and doing well, we see this as a great opportunity not only for the club, but for Kai also. Coventry have made no secret that they rate him highly, so it’s an exciting signing.”
Kettlewell will serve a second touchline ban in under a month against Kilmarnock on Wednesday. It comes after his red card against Rangers for protesting Tony Watt’s disallowed goal – a decision that the SFA KMI panel later confirmed was wrong. The Well boss has been outspoken against officials’ in the past month, claiming there’s been “six or seven” glaring errors gone against his side.
But he said: “I won’t change. That wasn’t just an emotion after the game. I always believe in being true to yourself. Sometimes people don’t like a piece of honesty but that’s how my world works. That’s not to try and be offensive, I just believe in justice and speaking your mind.
“One of the frustrations for me, you get a player sent off which is then rescinded days later but you can end up with a punishment for essentially being correct but at the end of it nobody says they will take away the yellow or red card.”
Well can move to within a point of fourth-placed Aberdeen with a win at Rugby Park. And Kettlewell added: “I know how quickly this league can kick you in the backside. But we are always trying to get better. We know the challenges about losing our best players. But we currently find ourselves on 30 points and last season it was eight fixtures later – about March – before we were able to do that. That shows growth.”