Stuart Kettlewell has confirmed that he will be in the Motherwell dug-out for the visit by Hearts on Sunday, but a decision has yet to be made after that.
The Steelmen follow the visit of Robbie Neilson’s side with a crucial visit to Kilmarnock before hosting Ross County on March 4, but Kettlewell says he’s not even looking at that yet.
His focus is on Hearts, but at least it gives the players some stability, following their 2-1 win over St Mirren on Wednesday night.
He said: “It has been made very clear, I’ve had a conversation with the board and they’ve asked me to take the game again on Sunday.
“That makes it really clear for the players and for everybody that surrounds the football club.
“It’s been broken up into two chunks. There were a couple of days’ preparation for St Mirren and it will be exactly the same for Hearts.
“That would be the same for any manager, let’s not kid ourselves, that’s how you would approach it.
“But that wee bit of certainty is there, and we know what we’re going to do for the next couple of days.
“What happens thereafter, again, I’ll be brutally honest and say I don’t know.
“There hasn’t been an official decision made on that, but that’s fine for me, it gives me an opportunity to go through the next couple of days and understand what benchmarks we need to hit, what milestones we need to hit, what information needs to come across, and the demands that we need returned from the players.”
Kettlewell says he has been slightly misunderstood over where he stands in regards to the actual manager’s job at Fir Park.
He said: “I felt I was possibly misquoted, and I need to make this abundantly clear.
“If the football club thought that I could help them, moving forward, and I could make something better, or I could make improvements or get results, then I would be more than happy to have a conversation.
“That’s what it is. I mean a conversation.
“That doesn’t mean it then flips back to somebody else becoming the manager – I’m only saying that I would have a conversation naturally, and it would just be a layer or two on to what has already been had, in terms of trying to prepare a team.
“There’s no guarantees of what would filter out of that. I wouldn’t be looking for any guarantees.
“The most important thing for me, and I’m not trying to portray myself as the biggest clubman ever.
“I’ve come into a football club for a few months, but I want the best for this football club and I want the best for this group of players and the staff that are round about.”
Kettlewell says he hasn’t been interviewed and said: “I’m not expecting anything, moving forward. My focus has to be on making sure that we’re right and we can acquit ourselves well on Sunday.”
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