Motherwell 0-2 Inverness: Caley come away with the points

Stuart McCall is a worried man.

The Motherwell manager watched his team produce their worst home performance during his reign as they crashed to a comprehensive defeat at the hands of Inverness.

He didn’t attempt to hide his frustration after watching a 90 minutes where his men were played off the park by a very impressive team from the Highlands.

He said: “We were rotten, absolutely rotten. That’s probably one of the poorest performances during my time. There are a lot of individuals nowhere near the form they were last season.

“In seasons gone past it has been easy to pick my starting eleven because of the consistency of the side. Now I’d be struggling to name a team for next week because we’re not performing at any level. We all know that. The players know that.”

Henrik Ojamaa got a 45-minute outing on his return to the club but failed to make any impact. McCall has been working miracles at Fir Park in recent seasons and deserves all the praise that comes his way.

Every successful campaign leads to the departure of his best performers. The next few weeks will be the sternest test of his time as a manager in Scotland. It’s a different story in Inverness.

They’re sitting at the top of the Premiership and boss John Hughes couldn’t be happier. Often a manager will attempt to create a team in his own image. That’s only partly true with Inverness.

Hughes, like Terry Butcher before him, was a tough, uncompromising defender. He gets the commitment he showed as a player from his charges and a whole lot more.

They appreciated that what you do off the ball is vitally important in the modern game. Hughes’ team were a group of men in perpetual motion and Motherwell couldn’t cope with their pass and move approach.

The demand to “freshen up the squad” is regularly trotted out by supporters up and down the county.

Sometimes new faces bring added vitality to a club, but just as often the incomers disrupt long-established on-pitch combinations.

Inverness decided to stick with what they had in preparation for this campaign and it’s paying dividends.

Such was their understanding, the Caley men looked like they could find a team-mate if playing blindfold.

John Hughes was quick to praise his players for achieving ability that through hard graft.

He said: “I’ve had a great buy-in from the players as regards the way we want to go about our business. They work very hard on the training pitch and when you do that I believe there is an education side to things.

“That was evident during the first half in the way we were rotating and changing positions. I saw enough quality, spirit and technical ability in the dressing room when I arrived.

“I just try to make the boys better individually and collectively. I tell them this could be the time of their lives.”

The goal that made the difference summed up their style a great blend of power and precision. Greg Tansey picked the ball up 35 yards from goal, steadied himself and arrowed a tremendous shot into the corner of the net.

Aaron Doran added a second right at the end when he was given time and space to skilfully clip the ball home from inside the penalty area. That signalled a mass exodus of the Motherwell fans a deeply unhappy bunch of people at the moment.