Motherwell face race against time over injured trio ahead of St Mirren test

Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell is in a race against the clock as he faces a sweat over three first-team players ahead of Saturday’s Premiership visit by St Mirren.

Captain Liam Kelly, winger Blair Spittal and defender Shane Blaney are all major doubts for the clash against Stephen Robinson’s side.

That saw goalkeeper Kelly pull out of the Scotland squad ahead of a 3-0 qualifier win over Cyprus and the 3-1 friendly defeat at home to England on Tuesday.

And Kettlewell admits that the international break saved him from being in a real pinch, had the game been played last weekend.

He said: “We’ve not had our challenges to seek again, in terms of injuries.

“I think a lot of the long-term ones that we spoke about, your Jon Obika, Mika Biereth, Conor Wilkinson, Pape Souare, we kind of know where they are.

“But unfortunately we had a few to add to that over the last week and a half as well.

“I think the club had mentioned about Blair Spittal, Liam Kelly was documented, Shane Blaney, so that’s another three we need to add in to the mix.

“For those guys they’re edging closer towards fitness, but again they remain doubts for the game, unfortunately, and it’s just a case of whether we can get enough work into them, get them on the park and see whether they’re available for Saturday.

“But, as it stands just now for all three, there’s absolutely no certainty on that.”

Kettlewell added: “It was an international break, we didn’t have a competitive game, but had a bounce game here against Kilmarnock, which was good for us to involve one or two who haven’t had enough game-time and some younger players.

“But I need to be realistic in that if the game was played last week we would have been really short on players.

“In terms of the