Another disallowed goal decision marred an exciting encounter at Fir Park

By Jimmy Calderwood

Published:

WE DOMINATED the start of the game but had to change our shape when Andrew Considine went off injured.

Motherwell were not creating much and we were creating chances. But Well started the second half very strongly and we were sloppy.

They deserved to go ahead at the time, which meant we had to go for it, so we put on Sone Aluko, who has not played for weeks through injury, and he scored a wonderful goal.

At that point it was end-to-end stuff and a wonderful advert for Scottish football.

We should have gone 2-1 ahead through Barry Nicholson. At the time I thought it was a great save from Graeme Smith but the television replays showed the ball was about yards over the line. My players were raging at the decision.

We had a perfectly good goal disallowed at Celtic Park a few weeks ago and it happened again. It was the linesman’s decision and it has happened a few times with him. If the goal had been given it would have made it very tough for Motherwell, especially with the pace of Mackie and Maguire. But the attitude of the players was marvellous.

We went to a difficult place against a team who has rightly had a lot of plaudits and we grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck.

When you look at the quality of players we have missing, it is horrendous. The likes of Motherwell and Dundee United have not had these problems and it is a massive boost to have your best players available.

It would have been nice to go into the last game against Rangers with third place up for grabs but it will still be an interesting game.

Good luck to Motherwell and I hope they enjoy playing in Europe.