Disappointment for Well

Motherwell were left wondering what went wrong after losing 3-0 to Celtic at Hampden in the Scottish Cup this afternoon

The opening stages were a bit frenetic with neither side getting their foot on the ball and making any passes. This wasn’t helped by the slippy, greasy surface which also led to a number of bookings as ref Calum Murray struggled to deal with the early stages.

The players booked were Majstorovic and Brown for Celtic and Keith Lasley for the Well. Looking at the Celtic Centre Back’s tackle he may have been worthy of a straight red card.

Celtic opened the scoring on 32 minutes with the first serious shot of the game, Ki was given too much space at the edge of the box and his 20 yard shot left Randolph helpless.

This came at a time when we though we had done the hard part and weathered the early storm and quietened the Celtic support.

Luck wasn’t with us minutes later when a 35 yard shot from Gunning rattled the cross bar and bounced clear.

The ref then had a ropey couple of minutes as he failed to show Majstorovic a second yellow for a hand ball, he gave the free kick but let him away with a warning! Then at the other end after Stephen Craigan slipped at the edge of the box and clearly pushed the ball away with his hand the ref failed to award anything!

We made a decent start to the second half without really threatening too much, all we had to show was a volley from Humphrey that was straight at Forster.

With 18 minutes left Stuart McCall moved to 4-4-2 with the introduction of Francis Jeffers for Steven Hammell, all this did was open us up a bit and allowed Celtic to hit on the break.

Four minutes later it was 2-0, Mark Wilson hit a shot from 18 yards and the ball looked to be heading wide before a deflection from Craigan left Randolph going the wrong way.

It was three with only two minutes left on the clock, Charlie Mulgrew sending a pile driver of a free kick high into Randolph’s top right corner.

In the end it wasn’t to be, it was an edgy performance from start to finish and we never put enough pressure on the back four of Celtic.