6.25pm

Today's result: Inverness CT 0, Motherwell 1.

Didn't venture up to the frozen north today, but Ricky informs me it was a "deserved" Motherwell victory.  Richie Foran scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot after Alan McCormack had been fouled in the box, although it sounds like Caley had their chances too.  There was one change to our "regular" starting eleven, with fit again David Clarkson replacing Jim Hamilton in attack, while Colin Meldrum continued in goal.  Good to see Jim Paterson back in action too when he replaced Foran for the final few minutes.

The result, coupled with Aberdeen's defeat at Celtic Park, puts us right back into contention for a top-six place.  We're now just three points behind ICT and have two successive home matches coming up.  Maybe the season isn't quite over yet after all.

Team: Meldrum, Corrigan, Craigan, McLean, Hammell,McBride (O'Donnell 80), Kerr, McCormack, Foran (Paterson 87), Scott McDonald (McGarry 84), Clarkson.
Subs not used: Alexiou, Hamilton, Fagan, Kinniburgh.

Scorer: Foran (51 pen).

Booked: none.

Attendance: 3,183.

Terry Butcher's post match comments were as follows:
"It was not a great match, in fact it was horrible.  But it was a great victory for us and it is a kick-start in a way because if we had fallen nine points behind Inverness it would probably have finished our season.  We knew we had to take something from the match today and to be honest I will take horrible, awful 1-0 wins all year long.  It would have been an enormous uphill struggle for us if we had lost today, but despite still having tricky fixtures left the win keeps us in contention, so it was a good victory from that point of view."

Looks like Scott Leitch is nearing a return to match fitness after three operations on his Achilles heel, and could feature in a reserve match against Inverness next week. 

The competition to design the new Motherwell home and away kits for next season has been reduced to the final six entries.  Only problem is, they're all absolutely minging, although to be fair it's difficult to tell for definite how bad they actually are due to the ridiculously poor Xara mock ups that have been published on the Official Motherwell website.  The home kits in particular are very disappointing.  I mean, how difficult really would it be to produce a simple design with a claret band across the chest?

Decide for yourself by viewing the home and away kits on the Official Site.

Brian McLean made his international debut for Northern Ireland in midweek when he replaced Stephen Craigan at half time during the 1-0 over Estonia.  

Meanwhile, Maurice Malpas was in change of the Scotland Under-21 side which romped to a 4-0 victory over Iceland on Tuesday night, with William Kinniburgh winning his third U21 cap and David Clarkson making a substitute appearance.  Shaun Fagan was an unused sub...