McGhee: No such thing as a bogey ground

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee insists their terrible recent record at New Douglas Park should have no bearing on Saturday's Lanarkshire derby.

McGhee was in charge, during his first spell at Fir Park, when Motherwell last won at Hamilton, a 3-0 victory in May 2009.

Later that year, Lukas Jutkiewicz hit a late equaliser there but Motherwell have failed to score in their subsequent seven visits.

Those include a Scottish Cup defeat by Albion Rovers in November 2013, Motherwell's only loss against the Coatbridge team in 35 meetings in major competitions.

Recent Motherwell sides have also struggled on other artificial pitches, but they have triumphed on their last two visits to Kilmarnock and McGhee is convinced they can flourish on the New Douglas Park surface.

"There's no such thing as a bogey ground,'' he said.

"It's about the teams you are playing against and your own team. We look forward to going there.

"One of the things I think is important to be said is that our boys train a lot on artificial pitches and really enjoy it. So the pitch isn't a factor.

"As much as I'm not an advocate of artificial pitches, we look forward to going there and playing on it. At least we know the surface is consistent.''

Returning to Motherwell's poor record at Hamilton, he added: "It's not really relevant. In terms of what's going to happen on the day, it has no significance.

"It was 3-3 the last time, we are two very well matched teams. I don't think there is anything between us, whatever the result is there will still not be anything between us.''

McGhee, whose side beat Partick Thistle 3-1 on Saturday, added: "We are capable of winning, they are capable of beating us, we know that. We are capable of a great performance, like we saw last Saturday, but we are also capable of being rubbish.

"It's about finding some consistency, taking the performance we had last week and reproducing it. If we can do that, it will be a hard game for Hamilton.''