Alexander says top-six still on despite defeat
Motherwell manager Graham Alexander can’t quite believe his faltering Fir Park side are still in with a chance of claiming a top-six finish.
Their wait for a win now stretches to 11 games but, with two games left before the split, they are in eighth place but just one point off their target.
The Steelmen struck the post before being floored by Callum Hendry’s lastgasp sucker punch.
Asked if the top six was still within their grasp after a winless slump stretching back to Boxing Day, he said: “Amazingly so. That’s what we have to focus on.
“I know everyone in our club is hurting at the minute. But the opportunity is right there in front of us. No one seems to want to take it at the moment. It keeps getting thrown around at clubs.
“We have had so many opportunities but it’s still there for us.
“If we go into the next two games, or certainly the next one, with a positive attitude to go and grab it, then we could be looking at this as a tough time that we came through and eventually achieved our ambitions.”
Alexander admitted it was a painful loss after pushing for a late winner.
“I thought it was a game where there only looked like one winner. We were really pushing for that winning goal.
“They have scored from nothing really. It was a wonder strike but there’s things we could do to not let him have that opportunity.
“It’s a sore one because even if it had finished 1-1 we would have been disappointed because I felt it was a game we could have won.”
Alexander leapt to the defence of yellow-carded sub Kaiyne Woolery, who flung himself to the turf in the Perth penalty box under a challenge from Ali Crawford late in the game.
“I think what happened was he got contact and should have gone down but didn’t and then thought, ‘I should have gone down’, and went down.
“So I’ve got no issues with the booking. I think if he’d gone down with the initial contact we’d have got a penalty. Little things like that, not just that, we are just getting punished for any slight mistake.
“But they are our mistakes so we have to own them and take responsibility for them.”