TICKET allocation was not something Ian Baraclough thought would concern him this week.

After all, the Motherwell manager has the trifling problem of trying to keep his club in the Scottish Premiership after these next two games against Rangers.

And yet the Englishman has been dragged into the debate over why so few Motherwell supporters will be at Ibrox this evening, while Rangers are not happen about how many seats have been given over to them for the Sunday second-leg at Fir Park.

The exact detail of how such matters are sorted out is beneath his pay packet. What does come under his remit, however, is how to make sure his players can shut out and shut up 50,000 Rangers fans tonight who have every chance of drowning out the 950 tucked away in a corner who will be cheering on his team.

"I'm not going to get involved in a ticket row," said Baraclough and then did just that. "We've been given what we have and we have to get on with that. Rangers have been given 1,500 or so, and that has to be dealt with in their own way.

"We asked for three per cent (but got 1.8 per cent) of what their ground holds and we have given them 11 cent - that is quite fair isn't it?

"We know that it will be a fervent crowd at Ibrox and we are going to have to silence them as much as we can. But as a player I wanted to thrive on that, I wanted to silence the crowd and put them on the back foot a little bit.

"It can turn against the home team and that is what you want to do as an opposition. Not to be intimidated by it, but to be really inspired by it."

An argument could be made that Rangers are on a winning run, while their opponents have come out of a season full of disappointment. Another point to be made is Motherwell's players have had less of a packed fixture list and their hope is Stuart McCall's men are fatigued, both mentally and physically.

"A lot of the media build-up has been that possibly the winner of the Hibernian-Rangers semi-final was going to be promoted," said Baraclough. "That comes across as something that has been given to them before they have earned it. I would love to turn it on its head.

"I think people have written us from the off on this one and that feeling of upsetting the odds appeals to me."