Motherwell boss Graham Alexander says striker Kevin van Veen didn't play in their 1-0 friendly win over Partick Thistle at Firhill because he wasn't fit enough, rather than any issues with the striker.
Van Veen has been the target of speculation linking him with a move back to the Netherlands, but Alexander says he and defender Paul McGinn weren't in the travelling squad simply because they weren't ready.
Both will be assessed by Fir Park medics ahead of their Europa Conference League second qualifying round first leg against Sligo Rovers on Thursday,
Alexander said: "They picked up a couple of knocks in the last two days, so they weren't fit to be involved today.
"We'll see how they are on Monday. We're going to assess them on Monday to see if they can train before the game on Thursday, but if we could have had them available and with us they would have been here.
"I'm always optimistic. I think it's important to think positively, but I'm not an expert in injuries, so I'll leave it up tot he experts.
"We want everybody fit. We haven't got a massive squad, we haven't got the number to cover four or five injuries or something like that. We work exceptionally hard on keeping people fit and resilient, but you're always going to get injuries in football.
"Kev is a big player for us last season, we brought Paul in to play for his experience and his ability, so these guys would expect to be involved. We expect them to play well when they're fit."
Motherwell emerged from Firhill with a 1-0 win thanks to Joe Efford's second-half strike, pouncing on a defensive error to rifle the ball past sub goalkeeper David Mitchell in 59 minutes.
Alexander felt it was a good work-out for his side and better than was provided in Austria by Vorwarts Steyr.
He said: "It was a good run-out. We haven't had a glut of games because of the difficulty in arranging them, so we've put a lot into training. We've only had a behind closed-doors game, then after three days we played Steyr in Austria. Then today, and that's us straight into the competitive games.
"We wanted to see a progression in how the players approached it as in physically, and the ideas we're working on in training are coming to the fore.
"We know Partick are a good team, they're always competing at the top end of the Championship, so that was a more realistic test for us. The game in Austria was good but it probably wasn't representative of what we'll face in Scottish football, and I thought today was.
"There are still things we can brush up on but it was as good as we can hope for.
"The lads know these are pre-season friendlies, but to be fair my lads approached it in the right way, it was competitive, they worked their socks off and we'll see how they are on Thursday.
"We know Sligo are ahead of us in games, because their season is already underway, but we have to compete on all different levels and be adaptable."
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