Kevin Van Veen feels he should be the cinch Premiership top goalscorer and vowed to step up and help ensure Motherwell do not miss the man who is.
The 30-year-old scored seven goals from 13 league starts this season but described his campaign so far as “quite good” with the ones that got away still hurting.
Tony Watt is the Scottish top flight’s leading scorer with nine goals, all of them coming before he moved from Fir Park to Dundee United earlier this week.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s Scottish Cup clash with Morton, Van Veen said: “I feel there is a lot still to improve and even develop because if I really want to be critical then I do think I could already be top scorer in the league if I finished some chances I had.
“I wish I finished them because I’m the type of player who wants to achieve the best and be up there for my team. If I score more it means I am helping my team win games.
“I really find now with the age I am that I want to be important for my team-mates.
“It’s not all about scoring, it’s more about the work ethic and being important for my team-mates with assists and trying to be the best I can for my team. My ability and scoring goals will always show through.
“I want to be up there for my own sake and if I do that it means I am helping the team too because if I score goals it means we are going to win games.”
Van Veen and the likes of Connor Shields could get more of a central role up front now that Watt has moved on.
“Obviously he will be missed but we have to move on too and we have a lot of good players in the squad to fill his boots,” the Dutchman said.
“On Tuesday we got an amazing goal from Jordan Roberts and there is a lot more of those type of players.
“It’s for other players to step up now and I think we have the quality to do so. Goals have been coming from all over the team.
“I would like to score a lot more and I don’t know if I am going to score more because he’s left – because we linked up well.
“I hope not only myself but other players in the team will step up and score goals because people are going to get a chance in his position.”
Motherwell lost 3-1 against 10-man Ross County in midweek despite Roberts’ goal and manager Graham Alexander is looking to repay the fans who travelled to Dingwall when they host Dougie Imrie’s in-form Morton.
“We have to reward the supporters that followed us all the way up there on Tuesday night and gave us a brilliant acknowledgment even at the end of the game when we were all hurting,” Alexander said.
“They applauded us off and I actually felt a little bit embarrassed after getting beat.
“But that just shows how much the supporters believe in this team and how much they want to support us.
“I felt a great warmth from that when I was on the bus coming back that they are really with us. We have to make sure we repay that faith.”
Motherwell have a couple of unnamed fitness doubts and will still be without the players who missed the midweek defeat, including Ricki Lamie, Juhani Ojala, Mark O’Hara, Liam Shaw and Ross Tierney.
