Motherwell manager Graham Alexander has mixed emotions over his return to the dugout – as he thinks his new side were dealt a bad hand from 12 yards out.
The Well looked to have secured three points away to St Mirren in Alexander’s first game in charge before Bobby Madden controversially pointed to the penalty spot. Lee Erwin was deemed to have been brought down in the box by Bevis Mugabi and Jamie McGrath stepped up to share the spoils.
Alexander reckons that ‘noise’ in the St Mirren camp influenced Madden’s decision: “I think we’ve been harshly dealt with at the penalty, I thought it was coming a little bit because there was an influence, I felt.
“There was a lot of noise on virtually every challenge – and I mean every challenge. I’ve seen it back and it’s a limited touch, if any at all. I feel for the guys in there because I don’t feel they deserved to score against us.
“I think it was Bevis (who was penalised) but honestly, I’ve watched it back and you can hardly see anything. I don’t know where the noise was coming from but there seemed to be a lot on every challenge. Listen, I know it goes on and I understand it.
“I have to be honest, I felt it was coming a little bit if there was going to be one around the box. It seemed that there was a lot of pressure. I am not going to talk about the referee.
“He managed the game well and did what he could. They have a split decision to make but as a very experienced manager who has been in the game a long time you can feel these things coming.”
It was Alexander’s first match in the dugout since his departure from Salford City in October 2020 and he says the penalty made it an encouraging but bittersweet return: “It was brilliant, then rubbish, to be back out there. You are loving it then you get the anguish of conceding too and the bad feelings you get sometimes.
“But there is a lot for us to take on. We need to improve in a couple of positions but there is a group here that can win games. In the second half we forgot the things we’d done in the first half a little bit. I’m really happy with the way the players took on board the limited information we gave them on Friday.
“You can see why it dissolved a wee bit in the second half, maybe because they were getting a bit tired. But I think if we’d have kept up what we did in the first half we’d have won the game.”
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