Graham Alexander insists Motherwell will bounce back from a horrific Halloween against Rangers. The steelmen are now winless after five games after being on a promising run of form at the beginning of October.

A hat trick from Fashion Sakala and goals from Glen Kamara, Kemar Roofe and James Tavernier sealed Rangers’ 6-1 win at Fir Park. Bevis Mugabi opened the scoring for Motherwell early in the first half but the steelmen’s lead didn’t last long. The problems for Motherwell continued with captain Stephen O’Donnell being sent off.

Motherwell fans would have hoped for a better performance from their side

Manager Graham Alexander said:” It was a sore one to take. You don’t want to concede six goals against any team so that’s really difficult, In the first 14 minutes we played well, the game was in our favour. Their double turned that on its head a little bit and then the big moments such as the red card and the second half goals lead the game to be taken away from us.

“I’ve not spoken to Stephen he was quiet, the full dressing room was, I don’t think now is the time for talking. We have to let our emotions go down and get our heads clear and then have conversations at training about what we need to do going forward. I don’t think it’ll go away straight away, it won’t turn to dust it’ll be in the back of our minds for a long time but there is a lot of challenges there we must focus on.

“The first Rangers goal was first class. We have to hold our hands up and say sometimes it is just sheer quality. We must refocus on how we played those 40 minutes and try repeat that which we weren’t able to do. I felt we used the ball well we created chances. We could’ve had a penalty, but I just thought that these moments in games that have happened throughout the season are game defining moments. We tried to salvage the game after the red card but we obviously couldn’t, and they punished us.

“There’s certainly things to take from this. Results like this are rare and it’s up to us to make sure they remain rare, we have good players that have done some real good things this season, we’re not going to let this cloud hang over our heads for the rest of the season.”

Halloween Horror Show as Rangers Thump Motherwell