Kevin van Veen: Killie defeat is a wake-up call for Motherwell and three points dropped

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Kevin van Veen says Motherwell’s 2-1 defeat at Kilmarnock has to be a wake-up call that they haven’t achieved anything yet this season.And he says the Rugby Park defeat is a massive three points thrown away, if the Steelmen want to achieve anything this season.The Dutchman opened the scoring inside 14 minutes, latching onto Blair Spittal’s inch-perfect pass and torturing Lewis Mayo before clipping a shot past Sam Walker with the outside of his foot for his fourth goal of the season.It was a brilliant goal from Motherwell’s point of view, but van Veen was annoyed that his side didn’t capitalise on it, as Danny Armstrong slipped a shot past Liam Kelly to equalise, before Ash Taylor powered a header into the net from former Fir Park favourite Liam Polworth’s free kick.In between those goals, van Veen set up sub Ross Tierney with Walker saving the Irishman’s shot; while he’s not blaming the youngster for not scoring, Kevin is pointing out that Motherwell had opportunities they didn’t take.And he says defender Ben Chrisene hitting the bar in the first half should have been a warning of things to come from Killie.He said: “We got a lot of warnings in the first half, we got away with a bit there and personally it wasn’t good enough.“Everybody spoke about coming out in the second half and being different, and we didn’t.“It’s very frustrating and painful to lose 2-1 like that.

I think the two goals we conceded were really poor from us.“Before their second goal I laid it off to Ross Tierney, and unfortunately it was a good save from the keeper, and it was a good shot from Ross, but we could have been 2-1 up there.“We could have gone 2-1 up, 2-0 seconds later the ball’s in our goal and we’re 2-1 behind, and it’s a lesson learned