IF he wasn’t peppered with grey already, this week may well have turned him that way.

Motherwell captain Keith Lasley will lead the Fir Park side into a nail-biting derby against Hamilton Accies on Saturday afternoon, a game that could well be significant in crystalising the fate of one of the teams.

Locked on 32 points at the bottom of the table, both sides are not only in an antsy stand-off of their own but one that casts a glance over the shoulder; Inverness might be the classic too little, too late to salvage a play-off spot but it is not a possibility that can be entirely discounted.

With three league games remaining there was more than simple rhetoric when Lasley expanded on the magnitude of Saturday’s encounter at the Super Seal stadium.

“It’s the biggest Lanarkshire derby ever,” he stated. “When you look at the implications for the two clubs I don’t think you can play it down at all, really.

“This is a game we’re determined to go and win – it’s almost a winner-take-all situation because of where we both find ourselves.

“This match is vitally important for both clubs and both towns and I think the attendance will reflect that.

“I’ve played in plenty of derbies in my time and they’re always great occasions. That’s why we’re in the game, to take part in games like this.

“This is something to relish. Yes, we’d have liked for the two clubs to be sitting third and fourth and not to have so much depending on the outcome.

“But we are where we are and we’ve got to deal with this. We’re men, we’re professionals and we’ve got to beat our biggest rivals in this league. Let’s go and do it.”

Lasley was part of the Motherwell side who hammered Rangers 6-1 in the play-off final in 2015 but despite the margin of the scoreline, the midfielder does not relish the same fraught occasion knocking on the door again.

With Kilmarnock and then Inverness Caledonian Thistle in wait following the Hamilton game this weekend, there is every chance that the Fir Park side could find themselves revisiting another play-off and regardless of how emphatic the last one was, Lasley is desperate to avoid the tension that it gives rise to.

Little wonder then that he called upon his colleagues to summon the stomach for the fight in an attempt to stave it off.

“You might look back at it now with the odd fond memory but if you ask anyone in our team who went through those games against Rangers then they’ll tell you it wasn’t a great experience at all,” he reflected.

“Personally, I know it drives me on because I never want to be involved in anything like that again – and it’s not just the play-offs we need to worry about either.

“With Inverness beating Hamilton on Saturday, we know we’re in a real fight here. But put it this way – we’re in a fight that we believe we can win and we’re going to show that against Hamilton on Saturday.

“Of course, they’ll be feeling exactly the same way but we really want this one. Our last two games have shown us that it’s OK having good possession and being in control of the game but it always boils down to results.

“That’s just made us even more focused to get the right result this time out.”

If the proposition of a play-off is unpalatable then the prospect of straight relegation is particularly odious “Mathematically, it’s still on the table and we’re under no illusions.

“This is, unquestionably, a relegation battle and not just an attempt to avoidthe play-offs. But we’re up for it and we feel capable of winning.”