Motherwell boss Graham Alexander admits he faces a challenge to replace Allan Campbell after feeling the midfielder’s absence during their final Scottish Premiership game.
The 22-year-old was denied a Fir Park farewell by a minor ankle injury and watched from the stands as his 13-year stay ended with a 2-1 defeat by Ross County on Sunday.
“I think we missed him,” Alexander said. “So that’s a challenge for us as a club and as a team to replace a quality player who is self-motivated, dedicated to his job, wants to win every single minute of every single day.
“We are going to have to replace that and it will be a tough job. I’m gutted that Allan wasn’t out there because he deserved to be out there.
“But he has more than shown his value for this club over the last few years and whatever he goes on to achieve, there will be no-one happier than myself and everyone at Motherwell, because he is a top guy.”
The defeat saw Motherwell slip from seventh to eighth and left a bad taste in Alexander’s mouth, although he will surely reflect on a job well done after time to calm down.
Motherwell were level with then-bottom County when the former Salford boss took over in early January and comfortably evaded relegation danger.
The former Scotland international will now get a chance to put his stamp on the squad after bringing in some short-term additions in January.
“We need a bit of everything, to be honest,” he said. “We need endeavour, we need quality, we need defensive stability, we need attacking intent and creativity. We need the whole shebang.
“You can’t get through the whole season and get success if you are only ticking five of the 10 boxes. You need to tick the lot of them.
“We have to identify the players and try to get them on board and keep the ones we want to keep, and just be a good all-round team.
“Because over the course of the season you get challenged in many different ways, there will be times it doesn’t go for you and you have to dig deep to get a result, and we have done that well in the past, but we didn’t manage to do it on Sunday.”
