Aberdeen boss Stephen Glass reckons Motherwell's Barry Maguire could have earned a red card in Saturday's Premiership clash - but his side 'deserved' to lose to Graham Alexander's.
Kevin Van Veen's second half double punished the Dons for not taking their chances as the Steelmen won 2-0.
It moves the Fir Park club into fifth in the league, but Glass believes Maguire could have been sent off before half-time, when the game was at 0-0.
The midfielder had been booked earlier in the half and committed a foul before its end. Referee Don Robertson waved play on.
While he believes it could have resulted in further action, Glass says Aberdeen didn't do enough to beat Motherwell over 90 minutes.
“I don’t want to get involved in talking about referees, it gets blown out of proportion," said Glass.
"At that incident, yes, but I’m not sitting complaining about the referee. Everything that cost us the game was in a red shirt.
"As a result, we got what we deserved."
Glass added to the club's in-house media: "It is a setback. You have to kill games when you’re on top. We didn’t do that in the first half and we ended up paying the price. It’s three points we’ve left behind.
“It looked like we switched off for the goals, two of the softest goals you’re likely to see. It's poor defending and it’s poor awareness.
"There was a lack of the desire not to get beat, pure and simple. If we do the professional things in the second half, we come out winning.
"We didn’t do that."
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