Neilson & Paterson On Motherwell Draw

Both head coach Robbie Neilson and Callum Paterson have admitted disappointment following the two all draw with Motherwell at the weekend.

Video – Motherwell Highlights (a)

Speaking to the Official Site following the draw, Neilson was very disappointed with our defending on the day as we twice had to come from behind to ensure a point from the match and given these are games that – with respect to the opposition – we should be winning given the expectation that tells its own story about our performance.

‘I`m disappointed. We wanted three points today, we should be winning games like these. We gave ourselves a difficult start by losing a bad goal. We got back in it through a quality bit of play, then lost another bad goal, and then scored an even better goal to level it. The quality wasn`t there enough today, though.’

Neilson was adamant on whether or not it was a good point given our struggles on the day, by saying categorically that he expects far better from the side than they showed.

‘It`s points dropped, absolutely. We were sitting in a good position in second, now we`re third, and we were playing against a team sitting second bottom. We expect to win these matches. The conditions didn`t help. We couldn`t even take a free kick at one point, it was atrocious out there. In the grand scheme of things, a point is OK but we wanted three.’

On such a bad day though there were some positives he could cling to – the spirit to fight back was one of them.

‘It`s encouraging to show that fight in coming back twice from going behind, but the bad thing about that is we`re losing goals again. We went four or five games without conceding and now we`re letting bad goals in again. We scored two superb goals, but we shouldn`t need to be pulling goals like that out the bag just to grab a draw in a game like this. They should be winners.’

With Prince Buaben coming on as a second half substitute with 20 minutes remaining in the clash, he came in for specific praise from the head coach.

‘Buaben coming on nearly won the game for us. He brought real drive and control to the midfield that we`d been missing. We just didn`t take our chances, but we`ll see how the table looks tomorrow after Celtic play. You never know, this might end up a good result for us.’

As for Paterson in his own after match interview, he was just as disappointed with the performance and the final result as the gaffer was and he knew it was down to the team to prove it was just one of those bad days at the office for us.

‘It was a terrible start. I don`t think we`ve ever lost a goal that quickly in my time at the club. It`s bad that we can`t keep clean sheets in games like these. We have to do much better. That wasn`t an enjoyable match at all. It was just a bad game, a bad performance, bad weather, a bad result, bad everything. Nothing to enjoy whatsoever. It`s two dropped points. It doesn`t matter that we recovered twice. We shouldn`t have been behind twice to begin with. That`s four dropped in two games, that`s not good enough. We can`t have people talking about us winning the title and then not go and win a game like today, or last week at home to Dundee.’

Paterson was asked if words had been had in the dressing room and whether anybody had pointed fingers and dodging the question and giving the respectable answer he said the whole team knew it wasn’t good enough and each of them knew they had all been very below par on the day and not doing their jobs, but they are a squad and they win and lose together.

‘There were no words exchanged in the dressing room, everyone knows their job and knows what they did wrong today. We didn`t pass the ball at all. We`re supposed to be a passing team, we break teams down. We were brought down to a different level of football. We were playing the ball long, looking for flick-ons in gale force winds. That`s just a bad standard of football and not how we play at all. And make no mistake, the weather and the pitch are no excuse for that. We can`t blame the elements for playing bad football.’

There was also a general message from the player in the interview, as in his mind we aren’t meeting the standards we set last year in the Championship success.

‘Last year we went and won the league with ten games to spare, and with a record points total. Those were the standards set. We wanted to take that into this season and, in my opinion, we haven`t done that this season, so we need to look at ourselves and sort things out.’