Motherwell boss: Mikael Mandron injury was a "distraction" at St Mirren and upset our gameplan

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Steven Hammell admits an injury to new Motherwell signing Mikael Mandron was a distraction for his side as the game plan they worked on all week to face St Mirren went out the window.The Steelmen were dealt a double blow before kick-off with the news Mandron picked up an injury in the final moments of Friday's training session and fellow new recruit Riku Danzaki couldn't feature as his international clearance was yet to go through.It put a big dent in the Steelmen's preparations and firepower was sorely lacking as they went down 1-0 in Paisley, thanks to a first-half strike from ex-Well frontman Curtis Main.Mandron - who had netted a double on his first start last week - could now be a doubt for Wednesday night's crunch clash at home to St Johnstone and Hammell revealed: "We put a lot of work in this week about playing with two strikers and then Mika gets injured."He's looked fantastic since he has been here but he gets injured in the last couple of minutes of trying yesterday, a really innocuous injury."That's been a frustrating thing for us this season."That's nine first team players we don't have available to us, especially that type [of player]."With the amount of preparation we had put into today to play a certain way today, for it to change last minute was a distraction that we didn't need."We were hopeful that he [Riku Danzaki] was going to be involved today as well."We've not really had our problems to seek."On the extent of Mandron's injury, Hammell added: "We don't know yet.

We are hoping to find out later today or tomorrow."Hopefully it is not too bad because he has been someone we have needed and he's come in and done well."For him not to be available today is a massive frustration."The Steelmen are sitting