Imrie: We defended poorly

Dougie Imrie admitted Hamilton left themselves with too much to do in the 4-2 derby defeat after Motherwell raced into a 3-0 lead after just 21 minutes.

Louis Moult tore Accies to shreds with a four-goal salvo, and Imrie said they need to defend better as a team.

Imrie said:“i’m bitterly disappointed. We were 3-0 down in 20 minutes and you can’t give any team three goals of a start.

“It’s a local derby, we should be putting in more effort than that. We especially can’t lose the goals that we did in the first 20 minutes, because it killed the whole game and gave us a mountain to climb after that.

“All credit to Motherwell, they took their chances, but it was very poor from us – at their first couple of goals especially.

“We got ourselves back into the game at 3-1, wee Ali Crawford hits the post with his free-kick, Georgios Sarris somehow misses from one yard – I think it comes back at him at pace off the post – but he’s in the middle of the goal and should be scoring that. If that goes in it’s a totally different game.

“At the start of the second half we killed ourselves again, giving away a penalty after five minutes when we were on the attack.

“We had spells in the game where we put them under a lot of pressure, but we just couldn’t get that killer instinct in front of goal and put the ball in the net – but Motherwell did.

“At 4-1 we came back into it with another great goal from the wee man, and the result could have been anything after that.

“If we had taken our chances it could have been 6-6.

“We have to defend better, and we know that as a team. It’s not just the back four, it’s from the striker right through to the goalie, and we know we need to do better.

“We’ll always fight to the end, and it’s disappointing, but we move on to next week.”