By Callum McFadden at Fir Park.
Motherwell 0-0 Ross County
The dawn of a new season is always exciting and both sets of supporters at Fir Park made plenty of noise before kickoff and as the two teams emerged from the tunnel to kickstart the Scottish Premiership season.
Both of these sides were in the lower reaches of the Premiership last season and it was easy to see why in the opening twenty minutes as neither side were capable of creating a clear-cut goalscoring opportunity.
The deadlock should have been broken by the home side just after the 20-minute mark when Zach Robinson raced behind the County defence to find himself one-on-one with Ross Laidlaw only to drag his shooting opportunity well wide of the goal.
Motherwell began to dominate possession as the first half progressed and Robinson had another opportunity to open the scoreline – on the cusp of the half-hour mark – when he got a touch on to a cross from Ewan Wilson only to be denied by the hands of Laidlaw.
Ross County had to wait until the 44th minute of the game to test the palms of Motherwell goalkeeper Aston Oxborough but Connor Randall’s shot from the edge of the box was easily saved.
The second half burst into life straight from the kick-off as Motherwell worked the ball down the left-hand side of County’s defence to work a crossing opportunity for Dan Casey which veered towards goal and had to be tipped over the ball by a scrambling Laidlaw.
Ronan Hale came close to grabbing a debut Scottish Premiership goal for County just before the hour mark as he hit a curling free kick from 25 yards out around the Motherwell wall only to see it be tipped wide in the nick of time by Oxborough.
‘Well manager Stuart Kettlewell introduced his new £250,000 striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos to proceedings with 25 minutes to go as he chased a winner.
Despite the introduction of the Australian, it was almost a former Motherwell striker who opened the scoring as Jordan White met an inviting Victor Loturi cross with a looping header, only to see his effort land on the roof of the net.
The home side continued to drive forward searching for a winner until the final whistle with their best chance coming from Wilson who had Laidlaw at full stretch to deny him an impressive goal on the half-volley with a matter of minutes remaining.
A clean sheet and a point for both sides is not the end of the world even if both managers so desperately wanted a win to kickstart their respective seasons with a victory.
WFi player of the match: Ross Laidlaw (Ross County) – a clean sheet for the County stopper thanks to a crucial save from Ewan Wilson late on.
Motherwell: Oxborough; O’Donnell, Casey, Gordon, Blaney (McGinn, 87), Wilson, Zdravkovski, Halliday, Miller (Callachan, 73), Robinson (Stamatelopoulos, 67), Ebiye (Wells, 87).
Substitutes: Hegyi, Seddon, Balmer, Sparrow, Stamatelopoulos, McGinn, Callachan, Kaleta, Wells.
Ross County: Laidlaw; Brown (Efete, 87), Leak, Wright, Nightingale, Harmon, Loturi, Randall, Grieves (Denholm, 62), Hale (Samuel, 73), White (Chilvers, 87).
Substitutes: Hamilton, Chilvers, Denholm, Telfer, Efete, Samuel, Brophy, MacLeod, Reid.
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