Stuart McCall has shot down fears of players quitting Motherwell for free at the end of the season.

Several first-team star players are out of contract come the summer – Darren Randolph, Chris Humphrey, Nicky Law, Michael Higdon, Simon Ramsden, Omar Daley and Tom Hateley – are all entering the final months of their current deals.

And fans fears Well would have a hard task re-building their squad over the summer if their is a mass exodus from the Lanarkshire club.

Jamie Murphy left in the January transfer window and McCall is aware others could follow.

But the manager is optimistic that he will be able to retain the services of a number of his current first-team squad.

He said: "We will get there in terms of speaking to players whose contracts are up.

"I am not overly concerned about it at the moment.

"We will sit down and have a chat with a few of them, but right now our focus is on trying to get ourselves back up to speed.

"We want to finish this season as high up the league as we possibly can and I do think that we have it within ourselves to get that second spot.

"As a team, we have done very well over the last two seasons and the lads we have got in this team can be satisfied that they have done very well.

"But there is still a bit of work to be done on the park and that is where our focus is just now."

Inverness, who are tied in joint second place on 37 points with Motherwell, are in town this weekend.

Both teams lost at the weekend, although McCall's side are still scratching their head as to how that came about after they dominated the match at Rugby Park.

But Dundee United also look to have been re-invigorated by the arrival of Jackie McNamara and McCall knows that if his side are to keep their place they need a sustained period of consistency.

"Everyone says it, but it is the truth – take out Celtic and take out Dundee and there really isn't anything between everyone else.

"So it is a fight and you need to be getting results and keep making progress.

"That is why I was so deeply disappointed at the weekend.

"I thought we were a wee bit rusty, but after the opening five minutes we were really in among them all the time.

"Football wise, I actually thought we were terrific and to leave with nothing and two players sent off was frustrating.

"But we have a chance to put that right this weekend and if we could kick on a wee bit it would give us a lot of confidence going into the real business end of the season."