Football: Motherwell to take on Odense in Europa League

Aug 19 2010 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

MOTHERWELL boss Craig Brown insists there will be no inferiority complex when his side takes on Odense BK in the Europa League tonight (Thursday).

The Steelmen travel to TRE-FOR Park this evening for their third qualifying round first-leg clash, looking to take a defendable score back to Fir Park next Thursday.

Brown said: “Odense are favourites. They are a huge club and if they were in Scotland they would be the third-biggest club, in terms of infrastructure, wages and attendances.

“I would put them in at least the ‘Dundee United’ category – so it’s a difficult game but not beyond us. In our league, we’ve got to play Celtic and Rangers and they don’t – Copenhagen are the biggest team in Denmark and they get about 25,000 while we’re used to 50,000 or 60,000 at the Old Firm, so there is no inferiority complex there.

“We’re going over there looking to attack and we always try to get an away goal. We’ve managed it before and it’s a terrific boost.”

English striker Nick Blackman (20) signed on loan from Blackburn Rovers until January 4, will feature in tonight’s squad as a ‘wildcard’ entry, but fellow hit-man Esteban Casagolda (23), who was also brought in last week, may feature in Sunday’s SPL trip to Kilmarnock.

Brown said: “On Thursday, we got confirmation that the budget would allow us to bring in one striker but, without putting too fine a point on it, we got two for the price of one because Blackburn Rovers were very good with us. I would love to bring more people in but I still don’t have a budget.”

Brown was disappointed with the 3-2 Fir Park defeat against Hibs, but is equally annoyed with the fact that Motherwell’s first three SPL matches are Sunday games.

He said: “I thought we played well on Sunday but we were very careless.

“Our priority this season is the SPL and the bonus is the Europa League so when we’ve finished with that on Thursday we will immediately start focusing on Kilmarnock. I think we showed enough positive aspects to go into the game at Rugby Park with confidence but we’ve got to make up for that defeat by trying to get an away victory.”

On Motherwell’s fixture schedule, Brown commented: “We’re disappointed that our first three games are on Sundays.

“I noticed that we had the lowest attendance of all the Premier League games at the weekend and part of the reason for that is that we were on the Sunday. I like games to be on Saturday at 3pm, because I’m an old-timer, a traditionalist.”