This is an excerpt from this week's Claret and Amber Alert, a free Motherwell newsletter written by Graeme McGarry that goes out every Thursday at 6pm. To sign up, click here.

The biggest game is always the next game. If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that from a manager, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing a weekly Motherwell email to the likes of you lot, let me tell you.

I jest of course. Please don’t unsubscribe.

Managers do tend to lean into clichés in their weekly musings to the press, but in fairness, Stuart Kettlewell has been refreshingly candid and certainly verbose in his answers since taking the helm at Fir Park.

And he is right to say that all focus is on a huge game at St Johnstone on Saturday, but for those of us on the outside, it is also worth considering the next four fixtures, which could very well make or break the season.

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As well as the trip to McDiarmid Park, the Steelmen also host Kilmarnock and then Ross County before making the Friday night trip to Cappielow to face Morton in the Scottish Cup. In a little over a fortnight, the ‘Well could - remarkably - be involved in the battle for the top six and looking forward to a quarter final.

Or…well, let’s not go there.

To have the best possible chance of coming out of this run with the scenario I have outlined ahead of a sequence of trickier looking games, there has to be at least one striker landed of decent quality in the coming days, and preferably two.

In fairness to Theo Bair, he is giving it everything up there, but the fact that there was no viable alternative on the bench in the win over Alloa when he was having one of his off-days showed just how threadbare Motherwell’s options in attack currently are.

Bringing in forwards in January, as another managerial cliché goes, is never easy. Kettlewell explained yesterday with trademark candour just how difficult it has been for him over the past few weeks as targets have come and invariably gone to other clubs with deeper pockets than Motherwell have at this moment in time.

The recall of Mika Biereth has obviously blindsided the club a little, but any grousing about the difficulties posed by doing your shopping in this window have to be caveated by the fact that the club are also undoubtedly paying for a poor summer window.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the forward positions. Biereth was a success story, but the other two forwards brought to the club then in Conor Wilkinson and now Oli Shaw have been sent back to England already having failed to make any sort of tangible impact between them.

This was always going to be a massive period for Motherwell and the recruitment team, and there appears to have been some solid business done so far. The link up between Georgie Gent and Adam Montgomery was exciting to watch at the weekend, and though there are huge question marks over how the left-sided Sam Nicholson will also fit into this equation, he looks a solid signing with decent pedigree and experience of the league.

Andy Halliday, too, for all that his media persona and his ‘staunch’ credentials may have rubbed one or two Motherwell supporters up the wrong way, brings with him a nous and a savvy that has sometimes been missing from this team. And he is a tidy player into the bargain, whose presence should compensate a little at least for the absence of Callum Slattery.

As for Callan Elliott, we shall have to wait and see. With Stephen O’Donnell the current first pick on the right, it certainly seems his arrival confirms that Paul McGinn will remain part of the back three in any case, where he has performed well and brings an assuredness that others lack.

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These additions are all well and good though. Without a reliable and regular goalscorer at the end of it all, it might count for little. While scoring hasn’t been too much of an issue for this side up until now, there is a justified fear it may become so if the void left by Biereth can’t be filled.

The defence, alas, has simply not been good enough to compensate for it. No matter the configuration or personnel, Motherwell have continued to lose soft goals, with Conor Sammon even being made to momentarily look like prime Zlatan as he hit a stunning equaliser for Alloa on Saturday.

Without the goals to compensate for that at the other end, Motherwell may be in trouble, so we have to hope that Kettlewell and the oft-derided Nick Daws can pull another gem out of the hat in the coming days.

Do that, and we can look forward to this potentially pivotal period with relish. If not, then January may define the season in entirely unwelcome fashion.