Hearts 2 Motherwell 0: Kettlewell fumes as Well give Shankland 'freedom of the box' for opener

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell was furious that his players switched off and gave in-form Lawrence Shankland 'the freedom of the box' for the opening goal.Second-half goals from Shankland and Kenneth Vargas sent the Gorgie side 14 points clear in third place in the Premiership, while the Steelmen slipped to ninth place, a point behind Aberdeen.And Kettlewell, whose side let a 3-0 lead slip at Pittodrie in midweek, was left lamenting their defending in the capital after Scotland star Shankland was allowed to head in the opener after 67 minutes.He said: “There is real frustration with what feels like our Achilles heel.“You have the top marksman in the country who is absolutely flying at the moment and we give him the freedom of our box.“It’s good delivery into our box but, and I said this to the players, you can deal with these moments to 95 per cent of the game at venues like these and you need to be 100 per cent in a game like this.”“We switch off.

It’s a good ball and a good header but it’s avoidable from our point of view. “It’s frustrating also because of one or two of the opportunities we have in the game.” Motherwell had to hang on after the opener but were still alive when Kenneth Vargas brushed off Stephen O’Donnell to ram in the second.

Kettlewell was adamant there was a case to rule it out – and he was shown a yellow card for protesting. He said: “I don’t know if it’s a foul in the build-up.

I have watched it back and the referee has officiated the game in a way when every type of contact like that has been a foul. “Every time there has been a brush of players or someone leaning in it has been a foul.