Motherwell left-back Jake Carroll says the Fir Park dressing room has been left ‘shocked’ after a nightmare 45 minutes had them lose the Lanarkshire derby.
Things couldn’t have been much worse in the first half. Bruce Anderson fired Hamilton into an early lead before stand-in ‘Well captain Stephen O’Donnell was sent off for a last-man foul on Ross Callachan inside the box, the midfielder converting his penalty.
Hamilton steamrolled Motherwell. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Then Marios Ogkmpoe scored to cap off a disastrous 31 minutes and Caroll admits the home changing room has been left stunned: “It’s a shocked dressing room at the moment. We are bitterly disappointed.
“We were possibly caught cold. We didn’t start the game well enough and before we knew it, we were three nil down with ten men. It’s an uphill battle and we had words at half-time to make sure we didn’t lose the second half to see where it took us.
“We showed some fighting spirit in the second half but it was too little, too late.”
Disappointing defeat. (Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Graham Alexander’s side eventually lost the game 4-1 as David Moyo added a fourth for Accies in the second half, Mark O’Hara’s penalty doing little to console the Fir Park club. It halted a good run of form that had the Steelmen win three of their last four prior to Saturday’s defeat.
That’s now four defeats in five matches against Hamilton for Motherwell but Carroll is hoping it’s just a slip-up, acknowledging the importance of the derby: “We’ve had consistency for the last couple of games up until this point. We just hope it’s a blip and you see all around the world that strange results are happening.
“I don’t know what it’s down to, whether it’s down to there being no fans but it’s disappointing. We’ve got to look back on it next week and see what we did wrong. We can’t start games like that no matter who it is against but especially against our rivals – we started so slowly.
Has to be better. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
“At half-time, we looked at the positives, tried to attack them, get men forward and score goals. We started to win our second balls and battles and that’s what we’ve got to look at for the next game.
“I thought we were up for the game, we looked sharp and bright warming up. It was just sloppy goals, down to 10 men and then a penalty. Everything that could have went wrong, went wrong in that opening 30 minutes.
“Of course (it will be hard for the fans to take). I spoke when we were beat there 3-0, which was just as difficult, and the fans need to know we are desperate to win these games.”
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