Motherwell star Paul McGinn: I'd have told folk to check into rehab if they said we'd rise to seventh in Premiership last season

Motherwell defender Paul McGinn joked he would have been telling folk to ‘check themselves into rehab’ if they’d told him the Steelmen would go from joint-bottom of the Premiership to the best of the bottom six last season.

When Stuart Kettlewell took the reins after Steven Hammell’s sacking in February, Motherwell were staring at a battle for their Premiership survival and a potential first season outside of the top flight in 38 years.

Incredibly, Kettlewell worked his magic to haul the club away from the mire and up to seventh place with a run of just two defeats in 14 matches, which came against Rangers and relegated side Dundee United.

McGinn admits it was a bleak time when club legend Hammell – who was announced as Celtic’s new head of academy coaching last week – was let go in the aftermath of a Scottish Cup exit to Raith Rovers, and says he would have been questioning the sanity of anyone who would have foretold the Steelmen’s impressive revival.

He said: “After Raith we felt pretty grim, very low. People you call friends losing their jobs is about as low as you can get in football.

"But from that position, if you’d told me what was going to happen I’d be asking ‘What are you taking?’ and telling them to ‘Get off it now and check yourself into rehab.’

“It’s hard to believe, but we are really pleased where we’ve come from there and, hopefully, we can keep it going next season.

“That was only two defeats [in Kettlewell’s run to the end of the season] and that was us playing Celtic and Rangers in that run as well, so it is really impressive.

“You get that bit of luck when you are going the right way.

"When you are heading down the way, you get bad decisions, bad luck, but I suppose you make your own luck. On the