Stuart Kettlewell believes it's Rangers who will feel the effect of playing away from Ibrox as the Motherwell head coach addressed the release of the Scottish Premiership fixtures for the 2024/25 season.
The Steelmen are set to travel to last year's runners-up during the second weekend of the league campaign. However, Rangers' home ground is likely to be unavailable due to major building issues, which means the tie is expected to be fulfilled elsewhere, with Murrayfield being touted as a possible option.
Kettlewell isn't wanting to let the narrative around where clash will be hosted take centre stage and has indicated there will be zero excuses at Motherwell's end regardless of the decision surrounding a suitable venue.
"If I'm being honest, there's obviously been a little bit of conversation between ourselves here," he explained.
"You start to see the news reports and you start to see the stories that are emerging. I honestly don't think about it too much. I don't really have a view on it, I genuinely don't.
"Of course you want to go and play at a stadium like Ibrox, of course players want to be involved in games at Ibrox, but whatever the resolution is to that, I'm sure it's not ideal for Rangers. But essentially we just see it as our first away game and wherever or whenever that is, we just always have to deal with that.
"You've heard me say umpteen times that I'm not one for making an excuse. It will be a game away from home, probably not where we thought it would be if we were taking on Rangers but in terms of effecting us, I don't really think it has any effect on us what so ever.
"I think there will be a bit of frustration in Rangers camp but it's obviously not my place to talk about that."
Kettlewell was involved in one of the ultimate cup shocks while playing for Queen's Park, who were an amateur team when they defeated Aberdeen on penalties in the CIS Insurance Cup second round 18 years ago.
The result sent shockwaves through Scottish football and was even more significant since Queen's Park had been forced out their Hampden Park home and made to play the fixture at Partick Thistle's Firhill Stadium instead because of a major rock concert.
So he is well aware how the change can impact a team - both positively and negatively.
"I always think there's two ways to look at absolutely everything," the Fir Park gaffer continued.
"You could make the argument, I was a player years ago with Queen's Park when we were shipped out of Hampden, I think it was for a Rolling Stones concert, we played Aberdeen, we were a bottom-tier team and Aberdeen were sitting towards the top of the Premier League and we obviously managed to beat them and knock them out the cup.
"It was a huge shock to everyone that particular result but maybe we got a little bit of a lift from going to a different stadium and a different environment, so it's so hard to say.
"You could say the flip to exactly what I just said so there's no way of knowing. What we have to do is you can only control the controllable and we just have to make sure that we take care of the first game, we've got our mindset on the first game and then everything else that will transpire against Rangers will come after that opening league game.
"I think we read into the fixtures and everything far too much. We have to play everybody, and we know what the structure is in this country, we know what the fixtures look like and how they split up at the end of it and all that type of thing so there's no excuses from my point of view. We just have just got to make sure we are as prepared as we best possibly can."
