Motherwell 0 Partick Thistle 0: Stuart Kettlewell blasts unacceptable cup display and warns of 'rude awakening' if players don't buck up ideas
dailyrecord.co.ukMotherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell blasted his side's performance in their drab draw with Partick Thistle and warned his players they are in for a 'rude awakening' if they think the display was anything other than unacceptable.The Steelmen's stalemate saw them progress to the last 16 of the Premier Sports Cup as group winners and they will now face a home tie against Kilmarnock next month.But the performance, which was followed by a 3-1 defeat on penalties for the bonus point, has been slammed by Kettlewell and he had a stark warning for his below-par side ahead of next week's Premiership opener against Ross County.He told Premier Sports: "Anybody that thinks that is an acceptable performance is going to get a rude awakening.
I thought we were slack all day and didn't play with any energy or aggression. We did fashion some chances and, if you want to be mediocre in your thinking, you could say we got a clean sheet."But I was animated because I never really saw that coming, that kind of performance.
And that is not to take anything away from Partick Thistle. They won the penalty shootout, and rightly so, but the shootout probably epitomised what we were as a team today."If you play like that in the Premiership, you are not going to win many games.
I'll not hide from that point and I have told the players that straight."We need to rectify some of our own issues that reared their head throughout that 90 minutes.
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