Frustrated Motherwell star Matt Penney can’t believe Hearts beat his side 3-0 at Fir Park on Sunday, and says they created enough chances to won three games.
The Steelmen dominated large spells in the game and created 26 chances, but failed to take any of them, while Lawrence Shankland’s first-half opener was added to by an Alan Forrest double.
Penney was left shell-shocked and said one of the Hearts players admitted at the end that they had been given ‘a doing’.
Penney, 24, who is on loan from Ipswich Town, said: “Honestly, I think that’s the most frustrating game I’ve ever been involved in, let along played.
“But football’s about taking your chances and keeping the ball out the back of your net.
“From a distance it doesn’t look great, but anybody who was at the game knows that we were the better team and deserved to win.
“On another day we take those chances and it’s a different story altogether.
“We’ve conceded three very poor goals, but we’ve created and we had 26 shots – that’s enough to win three games, never mind one!”
Penney, who struck the crossbar and forced a top save from Craig Gordon during the defeat, added: “If we weren’t creating chances it would be a different story altogether, but we created chances, we were the better team and if we tidy up and sort those little details out we win the game.
“One of their boys said at the end that it was one of those days – if the opposition players are saying ‘you battered us for 90 minutes and it could have been a different story’ it says everything.
“They’re supposed to be the third-best team in this league and we’ve battered them for 90 minutes.
“But it can’t be that we need to score five goals to win a game – defensively it needs to be a lot better.
“We’ve conceded three very poor goals that we’ll look at, dissect, and go from there.
“There are plenty of positives, but again there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Penney is enjoying his football at Motherwell, and hopes to get back to his own game after feeling frustrated at Ipswich.
He said: “I just want to play football, get back playing my football, get my confidence back, and to enjoy it.
“Anything else is a bonus, but I want to help my team as much as possible< whether that’s keeping the ball out of the net, assisting, scoring, whatever the gaffer asks of me, and we’ll see where it takes me.
“But it’s a great bunch of lads downstairs, everyone strives every day to be better, and I think there’s so much more to come as well.”
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