IAN BARACLOUGH has demanded his players show their inner strength and 'drag' Motherwell out of the mire.

The Fir Park club have 12 games left to save their season after just one point from their last eight has seem them plummet to the bottom of the Premiership.

It is a fall from grace that has been taking place all season for the team that claimed the title of 'best of the rest' for the last three years.

Captain Keith Lasley admitted after their latest defeat - a 1-0 home loss to Dundee on Saturday - that a fear factor was beginning to creep into their game.

But Baraclough has urged his team to show courage and turn their season around. He told SportTimes: "People should be saying to me that they want to be involved and they don't want to be left out.

"It can happen in clubs when you are down where we are that it is difficult to get strong characters to say 'Come on, I'm going to drag the team'. We have to find those individuals."

He added: "Everyone wants to go and do well for every person connected with the football club, none more so than the supporters. They have backed us, they continue to do that.

"There is quietness at times and I suppose you can hear every little thing that is shouted at them, but you have to be big and strong enough as a footballer to deal with that.

"It's not all going to go the way you want it to go with the crowds forceful and roaring. You'd love to play in that scenario every week.

"With the situation as it is at the moment, they are waiting for us to do something to get them sparked up and we have got to do that."

Motherwell trudged off the park to a chorus of boos from the few in Fir Park who had hung around long enough to do so.

Their frustration is founded in seeing a team that has competed admirably in recent years inexplicably lose their way this season.

It is a conundrum which was puzzling the Well support long before Baraclough's arrival, and the Motherwell manager is sure his new acquisitions will prove beneficial in solving their poor run.

"We have brought some new players in and to make them all tick at the same time is a difficult task," said the Motherwell manager, who gave George Long, Conor Grant, Marvin Johnson and Nathan Thomas home debuts on Saturday.

"I think there is light at the end of the tunnel in relation to the players we have available to us when you look at the guys we have coming back and the competition for places.

"You look at the likes of Conor Grant, who will have gone away disappointed. But, for me, he wanted to get on the ball. He may have given it away a couple of times, but we need to make sure the options he has are better.

"Nathan and Marvin are two wide men who have pace and ability, and it's for them to realise it. They will trouble any full-back if they go one against one.

"At times you have to deal with disappointment and say 'no, give me the ball next time' and make it happen."