MARK McGHEE believes he has 14 players he can trust following Motherwell’s hard-fought 1-1 draw against Aberdeen.

In his second game of charge at Fir Park the Well boss took his team to his old club and saw them cause havoc for the side currently sitting second in the Ladbrokes Premiership.

Motherwell had several chances to go ahead in the first half before Adam Rooney put the Pittodrie club in the lead, but the Steelmen showed their mettle in the second half with a terrific showing.

Ultimately it was the second-half substitutes that would make the breakthrough as Lionel Ainsworth and Scott McDonald combined for the Australian to nod Motherwell level.

And McGhee has praised the contribution from all his players in a game that could easily have seen the men in claret and amber return south with all three points.

“Scott McDonald has trained like a beast all week trying to get his place in the team but I decided to start with two others, so he’ll be disappointed,” said the Motherwell manager.

“But he came on and did the job. That’s fantastic.

“The other thing is we had the 11 players who started the game plus three subs who made a serious contribution [Theo Robinson also emerged from the bench to nearly score late on].

“By the end of the game we had 14 players that we know we can count on who have set their standards.”

While they didn’t score, McGhee’s first-choice pairing up front of Louis Moult and Wes Fletcher contributed well as they begin to develop a solid partnership.

Former York City striker Fletcher has had limited game time since picking up an injury early in the season, but his gaffer was pleased with his contribution against Aberdeen.

“You have selected them and you are right, both of them were terrific,” he said. “They have been terrific in training all week, as well.

“We partnered them up. Wes has not had a lot of games recently so maybe we felt we didn’t want him running out of energy or getting injured, so we took him off and put Scott on.

“But I thought everyone played excellently.”