McGhee hails 'outstanding' Marvin Johnson

Motherwell boss Mark McGhee admits he is stunned forward Marvin Johnson is still at the club.

The former Kidderminster man grabbed his second goal of the season and put in an dominant display as Well claimed a 3-0 Betfred Cup win over East Stirlingshire at Fir Park.

And his manager reckons there is more to come from a player destined to go all the way to the top.

He said: "I'm astonished I've managed to keep hold of Marvin so far, to be frank.

"You can see already he has the potential to have a stand-out season.

"It was another outstanding performance tonight. He was brilliant on Saturday and has been flying all pre-season.

"He is a marvellous player and one of the things I love about him is the freshness of his attitude. He gets knocked down, he gets up and gets on with it. He never complains.

"He's a brilliant athlete. A player on top of his form.

"He needs the support of his team-mates. Scotty McDonald ties in brilliantly with him and is also backed up by full-backs and midfielders working hard and believe in him enough to give him the ball. He's got a lot going for him.''

As good as Johnson was, it took him 53 minutes to break brave Shire's resistance as he finally found the space to turn and fire past Darren Dolan.

McDonald headed home from close range on 77 minutes before Chris Cadden wrapped up the scoring with the third four minutes from time.

Victory away to Stranraer on Saturday should be enough to see Motherwell follow Group F winners Rangers into the last 16, but McGhee wants his side to be more lethal in front of goal after being frustrated so long by John Sludden's Lowland League minnows.

"With a wee bit more precision we could just as easily have been three up at half-time,'' he said.

"We made enough chances and we encouraged them at the break that if we kept doing what we were doing we'd take a couple of the chances we were creating.''

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