In June 2009, Craigan was appointed the player-caretaker manager of Motherwell while the club looked for a replacement for Mark McGhee, who departed for Aberdeen. This temporary appointment ended when Jim Gannon was hired as the new manager. He endured a troubled relationship with Gannon, featuring in only seven of the seventeen league games he was in charge at Motherwell after being publicly criticised by the manager, but returned to regular first-team action under Craig Brown. On 16 April 2011 Craigan scored his first goal since 2006 with a header to open the scoring in the Scottish Cup semi-final against St Johnstone, which Motherwell won 3–0 to advance to the 2011 Scottish Cup Final.