Motherwell squad 'eager to learn' as Askou tries to instil new 'habits'

BBC News

17-07-2025

Jens Berthel Askou is pleased with the early progress of his Motherwell squad and says hoofing the ball out of defence is just one of the "habits" he is trying to change.The Dane thinks it will take "a little bit of time" for everything to fully click but he saw positive signs in their opening League Cup fixtures.Motherwell followed their 2-2 draw at Clyde - where they won the penalty shootout - by snatching a last-gasp victory over visitors Peterhead on Tuesday night.Next up in Group G is a trip to Stenhousemuir on Saturday and Askou said: "First of all, we've seen a squad and a group of players who are very eager to show that they want to learn."They're very eager to drive the tempo in the game and to take some initiative, and they've been quite brave in a lot of the phases."They've adapted really well and they're really trying and really eager to show that they want to play the style of football we want."The development from the game in Clyde to the one on Tuesday night was quite obvious in some phases."And then it's also still clear that we need to improve in the effectiveness in the final third, and to how to deal with especially the direct play that we face at the minute with teams going very direct against us."First of all, how we stay composed in these situations, and when we can, take the ball down instead of doing what most of the players have been used to throughout their whole career, to just clear the ball up the park as far away as possible, no matter how much time and space they actually have to bring the ball down and play and get the game in our terms. That's something we are still working on, getting these habits in."Then, again, trying to lift the tempo every day we train, and the quality, and the decision-making and also the relations in the final third is also about that."There's a lot of new players trying to find each other and understand each other. That sometimes takes a little bit of time."