Liam Kelly was surprised by Motherwell's sobering loss to Dundee - but he won't get overly dejected because of it.
The Steelmen had won their other Premiership matches in November 2-0 against Aberdeen and Hearts before they were handed a reality check off 11th placed Dundee on Saturday, losing 3-0.
Kelly provided damage limitation for Graham Alexander's side as Luke McCowan, Danny Mullen and Ryan Sweeney goals bruised Motherwell, who remain fifth in the Premiership ahead of Tuesday's match with Dundee United.
'Well's aggression and intensity was not present from previous matches and Kelly says it was strange to see - as they didn't prepare any different.
He said: “We know what the manager expects from us as players. You’ve seen how he has set us up in the last couple of weeks and we’ve been really good and really hard to beat.
“This one’s a mystery because the manager asked for nothing different from us. He asked for better, he asked for more.
“That one is definitely on the players and only the players because every single one of us could have played better and put on a much better showing than that.”
Kelly says Motherwell simply couldn't recover after a calamitous start saw them 2-0 down after 30 minutes. It's not a game, however, he'll be thinking about over and over again.
He explained: "We’d had two really positive results in the last couple of weeks and we just never carried it into this one. We never really got going. The first 20, 25 minutes killed us for the rest of the game.
“I think we did have a lot of confidence. We just never got to grips with the game at all. We’ve just had two good results so I’m not going to get too down after a bad performance, because I know what the team is capable of.
“Hopefully we will be a lot better than that in future, myself included. Ultimately, we’ve got a game on Tuesday night now and an opportunity to put it right.
“It wasn’t a great performance by any means but the games are coming thick and fast so we can’t dwell on it."
Alexander's side host Dundee's city rivals from Tannadice at Fir Park tomorrow in a game which will be broadcast in front of TV cameras.
Kelly added: "Hopefully, we don’t dwell on it. We’ve got a big game on Tuesday against another really good team from this city so we’re already looking forward to that match.
“We want to put it right, and hopefully we can put in a better performance and give our fans, who made the trip up to Dundee, something better.”
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