Experienced full-back Stevie Hammell admits the squad are still hurting from Saturday’s home defeat at the hands of Falkirk.
The Steelmen crashed to their first loss at Fir Park since Boxing Day as Steven Pressley’s men ran out 1-0 winners.
Hammell, who just last week penned a new two-year contract to stay at the club till the summer of 2012, told motherwellfc.co.uk that he is having trouble shaking off the dejection.
The 28-year-old said, “It’s a massive disappointment; if we have any thoughts of getting into Europe, and with all due respect to Falkirk, we should be looking at winning those types of games. We’re all gutted with such a poor performance.”
“We are just still really hurting at the moment.
“It’s all about bouncing back now. That’s what we said when the run stopped, we would find out the character in the dressing room. It stopped against Dundee Utd and we wanted to put that to bed straight away, but it wasn’t to be. We weren’t anywhere near our best; it was a good game for us to have after losing at Tannadice but we didn’t deserve anything on Saturday.
“We threw a few balls into the box and created a few half chances, but maybe played the wrong pass at the crucial time. I don’t think we made enough clear cut opportunities and that was massively disappointing.”
The Scotland International cap rejected claims that the break in the lead up to the match at Tannadice has had an impact on recent form.
Motherwell, who started pre-season in mid June preparing for a Europa League campaign, have now played 41 times this season.
However, the full-back does admit that a lack of a game perhaps did interrupt the momentum build-up since early January.
“I think the break came at a bad time for us. We were flying high and then all of a sudden we had two weeks without at game,” he said.
“To be fair, we were rested and fully fit going into the game, the momentum seemed to stop but there was no excuse for Saturday’s performance.
“However, we’ve got six games left against the top six teams in the league. That means that in most of the games we’ll be underdogs, which may well suit us. Maybe we are better being underdogs. We were favourites on Saturday and we lost. I think the pressure is really on when you are favourites and we just weren’t on our game.”
