There hasn’t been a lot for Motherwell fans to smile about of late but they are at least getting value for money.
For the second weekend in succession their team salvaged a draw with a goal in injury time, further evidence that there’s always merit in hanging about for the final whistle even when all hope looks lost.
The joy that Conor Wilkinson’s 97th minute strike brought to earn a 3-3 draw in a thrilling contest with Dundee would likely have worn off, however, by the time the Well fans trudged through the snow and arrived back home.
The bigger picture is that Stuart Kettlewell’s men haven’t won a match for three months now, an alarming slump that they again failed to arrest from a promising position on Saturday when they went in front in a match for the first time since that previous victory in early September.
Holding the lead almost seemed to spook them as they retreated back into their shells to allow Dundee to dominate most of the remainder of the contest, the teams trading goals until Wilkinson had his big moment late on.
They will get another chance tomorrow to finally put a win on the board in what is shaping up to be a vital trip to play Ross County, a contest that pits eighth against ninth but with the relegation spots not far behind them.
“We’ve shown great character, which we’ve done time and time again,” said Wilkinson of his equaliser. “We’ll all be feeling it at not winning in 11 games, though, so it’s up to us to change that starting on Tuesday.
“On one hand, we’ve been in the position of needing a last-gasp equaliser in the last two games. But on the other side, anyone can see we know where the goals are.
“At 1-0 up here, we didn’t shut up shop, we let them come at us and it cost us. We can only watch it back and learn from it.
“The way we sat off after going ahead is maybe a confidence thing. We haven’t won for a while, so no one wants to make a mistake, whereas if we’d win 11 in a row we wouldn’t feel that pressure.
“We get frustrated, the people who pay good money to come and see us get frustrated, so what you really want us to be able to play as if no one’s there, just to go forward and not worry about mistakes.
“Instead, we went the other way and invited trouble. We’re not quite good enough to invite pressure the way we did, because a chance is bound to drop to someone and all your hard work is going to be undone.”
The former Walsall striker admits he didn’t really know what he was meant to be doing when he was thrown on in midfield just after the hour mark.
An earlier miss from him had looked costly when Zach Robinson capitalised to put Dundee 3-2 ahead with just two minutes remaining but Wilkinson didn’t let his head go down and grabbed his moment of glory at the death.
“It was a good feeling for me to get that goal,” he added. “It’s been a couple of weeks since my last one and it was obviously an important one at a big moment in the game.
“At the goal, the grass was really wet and the ball skidded off the surface so I thought, ‘I’ll put some power behind it, aim at the keeper’s knees and he’s not going to get it’.
“It’s the ups and downs of football - one minute it’s all doom and gloom, the next you’re on top of the world.
“Thing is, I came on as a central midfielder, a position I’ve never played in my life, so to be honest I didn’t really know what I was doing. But then a moment like that comes along, when it’s all on you, and you just have to take it.”
The goal was a blow for a Dundee side who recovered well from falling behind early on to look composed and confident in the middle of the park. One of their key performers was Lyall Cameron who scored their first goal and generally kept play ticking over.
“With the performance we put in, I think we deserved to walk away with all three points but in this league you get punished,” said the midfielder. “We lost concentration towards the end. But overall the performance was positive and we showed good moments in the game.
“We have performed well this season but looking back at the games we’ve played, I think we could be higher up the league than where we are.
“At the start of the season when we were saying we were aiming for the top six, a lot of people were looking at us and laughing. But we’ve proved we are a top-six side and if we put in performances like that we’ll be rewarded.”
