STAYING mentally strong in Motherwell's relegation fight is one of Lionel Ainsworth's toughest battles.

The winger came on as a substitute last week for Well and despite showing a directness and creative spark he was unable to halt Dundee claiming a scrappy 1-0 win.

It was the Steelmen's seven defeat in eight games, a run of form which has seen them plunge to the foot of the SPFL Premiership table.

It is a culture shock for many at Fir Park and Ainsworth confessed to SportTimes coping with the psychological strain of a dog fight is something he has had to get used to.

"We have to be mentally strong and just keep going. We know there are not that many games left," said the 27-year-old.

"We are looking at things now we are at the bottom, but we have got to do our best to go above the teams around us and make sure we don't get relegated. St Mirren lost again but we can't rely on that. We have got to score goals and stand up and be counted.

"We have spoken about relegation before and it genuinely wasn't in my head. You see it now, it's there. We just have to give a 110% for us, the fans, and everyone else at the club.

"I've never been in this situation before. I'm trying to stay mentally strong because the rest of the lads are doing that. We know we need to get out of this rut.

"You go home at night and you are annoyed. I can think of other words to describe it but yeah, you are annoyed. But You need to separate that from your personal life.

"You can't go home and take it out on other people, you have to look at yourself first. As a team that's what we are doing."

While Motherwell have had their fair share of hammerings this season - they lost 5-0 to Hamilton, 4-1 to Dundee and 4-0 to Celtic within the space of four games back in January - Ian Baraclough's team have been narrowly edged out in recent weeks.

After drawing 1-1 with St Johnstone earlier this month, Well have gone on to lose by just the one goal in their last two matches against Ross County and Dundee, with the latter scoring their winner via a shanked cross that flew straight into the net.

And ahead of tomorrow's visit of Inverness, Ainsworth is hopeful the tide is slowly turning.

He said: It's never nice when you lose games but it's even worse when you are in the situation we are in. We look at the table and we know we are down the bottom.

"Everyone is doing everything they can to try and turn things around, but then you concede a goal like the one we did against Dundee. It just sums everything up.

"We are finding it difficult to score but it doesn't help when efforts like that go in at the other end. It's a freak accident.

"But, like I said, it's about being strong mentally and focusing on being positive. We have another home game tomorrow and it's up to us to give the crowd something to shout about."

Meanwhile, Motherwell have announced the appointment of Gordon Crawford as the club's physical performance and conditioning coach.

The man who previously worked with both the SRU and the SFA said: "I am absolutely delighted to be part of the manager's Coaching and Performance Support Team at Motherwell and look forward to helping the club develop and achieve further success.''