Gow may make his Motherwell debut at St Johnstone on Saturday

By John Barnes

Craig Brown believes Alan Gow must make an impact at Motherwell or he will find himself in the football wilderness.

The 27-year-old former Rangers and Falkirk forward was recently signed on a six-month deal by the Fir Park club and could make his debut on Saturday.

The Motherwell manager said: "I'm not saying time's running out for him.

"But unless he makes a better fist of it here than he's done recently, he's going to be in the wilderness, I expect. He must know that."

And the veteran manager added: "We've signed him on short-term contract, which is beneficial both to him and ourselves - and, if he puts his mind to it, the ability he's got is well known."

However, that ability failed to shine when he was at Rangers and he made only two cup tie appearances for the club.

Loan spells at Blackpool and Norwich followed, before securing a £200,000 move to Plymouth.

Another loan spell last season saw him move to Hibernian for three months where he made only three starts.

I didn't quite realise how much ability he has - it's quite incredible, the close control, vision, the passing and the movement Craig Brown on Alan Gow

Gow's lack of recent regular top-team action means the Fir Park manager is closely monitoring his fitness before deciding whether he will play against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.

"We've been training him quite rigorously because he hasn't had match practice," revealed Brown.

"We had a friendly match midweek against Clyde - he played and looked good. If there's no reaction he'll be okay for contention so I've got to consider whether to include him from the start or begin with him on the bench.

"Seeing him train, I didn't quite realise how much ability he has - it's quite incredible, the close control, vision, the passing and the movement.

"But he needs fitness and that's the one debit factor at the moment.

"If the game was played on a small pitch and it lasts 20 minutes each way it would be OK, but we're on a big pitch at Perth and we've got to be sure that he's ready to compete for 90 minutes on that size of arena."

St Johnstone are bottom of the Scottish Premier League after three games with one point but Brown is not looking too much into table placings at the moment.

"I disregard that totally because I saw their last game at Ibrox and they certainly did not play like a bottom-of-the-league team," he said.

"And the best performance I saw last season was from that same group of players against Hibernian and they won 5-1. I would say that was the best team performance in the SPL that I saw last season.

"We got credited with one or two good ones, but St Johnstone, for my money, were the best team that I saw and they've got the same group of players.

"They've even added to it, so we know that this is a difficult fixture."

Motherwell are still without injured duo Marc Fitzpatrick and Shaun Hutchinson for the trip to Perth.

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