Archibald celebrates many happy returns
ALAN ARCHIBALD hailed the perfect 40th birthday present as his Jags side pulled themselves to within a point of second bottom Dundee. His nerves were strained, however, after watching his team almost blow a 3-0 lead in the second half. Concerned that all of his side’s great first-half work would be undone, he admitted fear crept into their play and he was just relieved they got over the line for a vital victory. ‘You could see we hadn’t won many games this year,’ said Archibald, whose team now face a showdown with the Dark Blues on Saturday. ‘We dropped deep and there was fear there. I’m just glad we rode it out. It gives us a chance to go to Dundee and go above them. ‘We play the teams above us in the next phase of games, so it gives us an opportunity to go and build on it. ‘We’ve been here before, we took seven points from nine earlier in the season then took just one draw after that. We needed to be better and more organised.’ Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson said: ‘We gave them too much. Make those errors and we will lose matches. Simple. The first goal we gave away was ridiculous. You can’t give teams a 3-0 start. It’s hard to justify and prepare for that. But we showed good character.’ Motherwell had a goal ruled out before they got back in the game but Robinson says it had no effect. ‘We didn’t lose because of the ref,’ he admitted. ‘Individual errors are why we lost. They punished us for every error and gave us an uphill task. We gifted them all three goals, they didn’t have to work for them. ‘I can take positives from the second half and the performance from Elliott Frear, who was the best on the pitch by a mile.’