Kevin van Veen absence was due to injury, insists Motherwell boss
dailyrecord.co.ukMotherwell boss Graham Alexander says striker Kevin van Veen didn't play in their 1-0 friendly win over Partick Thistle at Firhill because he wasn't fit enough, rather than any issues with the striker.Van Veen has been the target of speculation linking him with a move back to the Netherlands, but Alexander says he and defender Paul McGinn weren't in the travelling squad simply because they weren't ready.Both will be assessed by Fir Park medics ahead of their Europa Conference League second qualifying round first leg against Sligo Rovers on Thursday,Alexander said: "They picked up a couple of knocks in the last two days, so they weren't fit to be involved today."We'll see how they are on Monday.
We're going to assess them on Monday to see if they can train before the game on Thursday, but if we could have had them available and with us they would have been here."I'm always optimistic.
I think it's important to think positively, but I'm not an expert in injuries, so I'll leave it up tot he experts."We want everybody fit.
We haven't got a massive squad, we haven't got the number to cover four or five injuries or something like that. We work exceptionally hard on keeping people fit and resilient, but you're always going to get injuries in football."Kev is a big player for us last season, we brought Paul in to play for his experience and his ability, so these guys would expect to be involved.
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