Graham Alexander urged Motherwell fans to keep the faith after slumping to defeat against Sligo Rovers.
The Fir Park boss believes there's no panic despite former Hearts hitman Aidan Keena's first half winner in the second-round Europa Conference League first-leg qualifier leaving them facing an exit. 'Well were booed off the pitch after going down to the Irish minnows but Alexander is adamant they can still salvage the tie and progress to face either Sparta Prague or Viking in the next round
He said: "Keep believing. We understand where we can improve, we did a lot of good things but the game is about winning. It’s frustration that we didn’t win the game. I think we did more than enough to win it.
"The goal speaks for itself. It was a mistake but an honest one. That gave them something to protect. They sat deep at times but we still created enough chances to win the game but didn’t take them. But it’s only half time. It’s still there to try and win.
"I thought there was a little bit of slowness in our play before they scored, we took too many touches. That was more of a tactical thing not sharpness of movement. But we are getting up to speed. Regardless of how long you pre-season is, how many games you have, the first competitive game is always different to any other game of football you play in."
Alexander also refused to concede that having only two bounce games during pre-season was a factor in his side not being fully up to speed. He said: "No - I don’t think so. Like I say, we created more than enough chances to win.
"We gave a goal away that was just a mistake. It’s not as if we were under intense pressure. ‘We’d lots of chances. That’s the way the game sometimes goes. We still have the second leg to go and win. That’s football. That’s the way it is. We can’t change it.
"What we’ll do is go and try and win games of football. You can’t say the team didn’t try its best to win that one. The game is about scoring more goals than your opponent and we didn’t do that tonight. We have to process that we didn’t do that. That’s the game sometimes. Sometimes you don’t get what we deserved and I don’t think we got what we deserved tonight.
"We’re realists. They scored one more goal than us and they go into the second leg one goal ahead."
The Lanarkshire club could also face a UEFA investigation after a missile thrown from the crowd appeared to strike an assistant referee's arm. Record Sport understands the incident mentioned in the official observer's report.
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