Alfred Johansson blames ‘low-level’ defending as Motherwell lose to Kilmarnock

Motherwell manager Alfred Johansson bemoaned his side’s defending after a 3-2 defeat at Kilmarnock made it five losses in a row.

The Steelmen bounced back following Greg Kiltie’s opener after goalkeeper Alex Paulsen had gifted Kilmarnock possession 60 seconds in.

The visitors controlled most of the first half at Rugby Park after Alex Lowry levelled, and Seb Palmer-Houlden put the Steelmen ahead in the 56th minute.

But Tyreece John-Jules soon equalised after Motherwell failed to deal with Jamie Brandon’s high ball and the Killie right-back set up Kiltie for the winner 10 minutes later.

Johansson said: “I’m very, very disappointed and frustrated with how we end this game. It’s extremely difficult to accept the fact that we lost this game.

“Obviously we make it difficult for ourselves right at the start as well, but that can happen in football, you make a mistake and get punished in that way.

“But we reacted fantastically and the rest of the first half is very, very good. We’re pressing together, we’re aggressive, we catch them on the break, we create chances.

“They start going long into the strikers with one touch and we just don’t defend those long balls well enough.

“I don’t think we’re winning enough second balls and also, prior to the second goal, for instance, we have the ball under control, but we give it away way too easy.

“We have chances to score more than two goals but we can’t rely on scoring three goals away from home. We need to be much more solid. It’s just way too low a level, how we defend.”

Killie boss Neil McCann was delighted with how his players responded to going behind as they moved off the foot of the William Hill Premiership.

“I talk about the spirit that I’ve got in that dressing room now, I talk about the character, with a group of boys that have taken a wee bit of time to come together, and I thought second half we were absolutely brilliant,” he said.

“We had a couple of wee things that we tinkered with, in terms of where we wanted to get at Motherwell. But, tactics aside, that was just about them saying, ‘no, we’re going to get ourselves back in that game, and we look to go and try and win it’.”

McCann replaced on-loan Hearts centre-back MJ Kamson-Kamara with Brandon at right-back in the 33rd minute, before being forced to bring on Aaron Tshibola three minutes later when Bailey Rice went off with a groin injury.

“Listen, MJ, to be fair to the boy, it’s the third game I’ve asked him to play out of position, and he’s such a brilliant guy that he goes and does it,” McCann said.

“I just felt that was one of the areas where we were getting hurt a wee bit, because he was getting dragged in, because (Ibrahim) Said’s taking him inside. It was becoming very apparent that something had to change.

“I know everybody gets upset when they’re coming off in the first half, and it feels like a slight. It’s completely not.

“Jamie shows why we make that change, he was outstanding.”