Business-as-usual for Motherwell amid US investment talks
Stuart Kettlewell is adopting a business-as-usual approach at Motherwell after the club revealed on Wednesday that they have moved a step closer to an agreement with a United States-based potential investor.
The Well Society has a 71 per cent stake in the club and its board stressed that its members would have the final approval on any potential deal that emerged from the ongoing talks.
But in a week where Brian Caldwell joined the Fir Park club as chief executive, the prospect of investment from across the Atlantic appeared to be closer to fruition as a club statement read: "The executive board of the club would like to confirm that investment discussions with a US-based family have reached the point where both parties wish to move forward to the next stage and have therefore entered into an agreement on non-binding heads of terms."
However, boss Kettlewell refrained from looking too far ahead.
He said: "I think yesterday probably just indicates that it's maybe one stage further forward.
"Certainly my understanding of the conversations that I've had - and I've not been involved in a great deal of it, which you'll understand - is that it's just a small step. That's all it is.
"With all these things, they can be a longer process, so that doesn't necessarily change anything in my mindset and my remit.
"You look at budget over the summer. That's going to be pretty much look exactly what it is just now until someone tells me any different which certainly doesn't seem to be on the horizon or anything like that.
"I think it's a positive step, because I'm always a believer in evolution, if there's ways of improving things at football clubs.
"But again, you'll see that Brian started here on Tuesday so that starts to become a conversation for the likes of Brian Caldwell, the board members and the Well Society to make sure that whatever happens next, for or against, is the right thing for the football club.
"I don't think anybody should be massively reading into it that there will be wholesale changes here at the football club in the coming days or weeks.
"What I do need to know is what the plan is moving forward and we do sit with a plan for the summer.
"And to my mind that the news yesterday doesn't change anything within that - certainly not at this stage.
"I don't really think there's anything legal and binding there as such at this moment in time, all it is, is a proposal and one more step forward and decisions still to be made."
The Steelmen are sitting eighth in the table - six points behind sixth-placed Dundee - with just two games remaining before the split, away to the Dens Park side and at home to seventh-placed Hibernian, who are five ahead.
Kettlewell knows they will need favours from elsewhere while taking maximum points, but will remain positive.
He said: "Six points up for grabs, I will not shoot my mouth off. I'm not saying that we're going to get top six.
"But let's go and take a real positive mindset into these next two games starting on Saturday against Dundee and if you win one game of football, the situation might still be mathematically possible going into our home game and that's all we can really control.
"We need a favour or two in there, we do need one or two aspects to go our way but we can only concentrate in this game on Saturday and it's going to be a tough one.
"It's going to be a real difficult game for us but I do think we're going in with a pretty-positive mindset."
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