A crowd of 4,091 boosted crisis-torn Motherwell's fight for survival on Tuesday by coming out in the rain for this friendly draw at Fir Park - but the Italians showed them no mercy.

The Serie A outfit had intended to extend the hand of friendship to the Lanarkshire club, who were forced to sack 19 players last week after being placed into interim administration.

But Gigi Del Neri's Italian upstarts, who stunned all in their homeland by clinching a UEFA Cup place and missing out on the Champions League by just a point, had not come over for a holiday.

The vastly inexperienced Motherwell players will have bruises to prove that, but they gave their fans some encouragement with James McFadden cancelling out Simone Perrotta's second-half header.

The club and Terry Butcher's hopes now lie with the youngsters and they responded well after Simone Barone had given them a sixth-minute scare by lashing a right-foot shot just wide.

Motherwell rallied and went close to taking the lead in the 14th minute when youngster Stephen Pearson headed Derek Adams' free-kick just wide.

But Chievo were not going to give them any sympathy as Federico Cossato left Steven Hammell writhing on the ground in agony with a reckless late challenge which he did eventually recover from.

Referee Hugh Dallas was forced to take action in the 28th minute to calm the visitors down after Lorenzo D'Anna had cut Stuart Elliott down.

But that failed to knock Motherwell out of their stride and between more rash challenges from the Italians, Marco Ambrosia saved Adams' right-foot shot after a quickly-taken Hammell free-kick.

But Adams and Hammell took retribution for some awful challenges and after a melee they were also shown yellow cards before Barone followed them into the book for hacking down Adams.

The crowd were certainly getting their £10s' worth and they could have been celebrating a goal just before the break, but Barone cleared Dirk Lehmann's shot off the line.

The bad tackles continued after break with some of the Italian players lucky to remain on the pitch, but they took the lead on the hour when Perrotta headed home Salvatore Lanna's cross.

But Pearson gave the fans something to shout about with three minutes left when McFadden got on the end of Pearson's cross to give Motherwell a draw and hope for the future.