Disappointed Stephen Glass insisted his Aberdeen players only have themselves to blame after being mugged by Motherwell.
The Dons dominated the play and possession at Pittodrie but the Steelmen won it thanks to a double from Kevin van Veen.
It saw the Dons’ mini-revival stopped in its tracks after they had beaten Hibs and Hearts and drawn with Rangers
Glass felt Motherwell’s Barry Maguire could have walked for a second yellow card in the first period but insisted his players and not referee Don Robertson were to blame for this defeat.
“I don’t want to get involved in talking about referees, it gets blown out of proportion.
“At that incident, yes, but I’m not sitting complaining about the referee. Everything that cost us the game was in a red shirt today.
“In the first half we were okay. We had a lot of threats and a lot of decent opportunities that we should have done better with.
“Second half, it was the exact opposite of the performance we had in the second half last week [against Hearts].
“As a result, we got what we deserved.”
Glass admitted both goals were soft and avoidable.
He claimed: “I think there is more than one individual error within it. They are switch-offs, it’s not reacting right. It’s poor defending and poor awareness and it’s poor willingness not to get beat. Pure and simple.
"If we do the professional thing in the second half, I think we would come out winning but we didn’t so we didn’t deserve to win."
Glass acknowledged this was a blow but one Aberdeen will bounce back from after the international break.
He stated: “It’s a setback because we’re looking to build. We don’t want to step backwards at any point. You’ve got to kill games when you’re on top and we didn’t do that in the first half and we paid the price.
“It’s a setback because it’s three points we’ve left behind and Motherwell have jumped ahead of us with three points. That’s what it is and we’ve got to start looking at Dundee United now.”
