Lasley: I thanked Ainsworth for scoring against Killie after my first half blunder

Ainsworth - who turned the game in Motherwell's favour after coming on as a first half substitute - put the Steelmen 2-1 up in stunning fashion after Lasley had earlier gifted the Ayrshire side an equaliser by completely missing a cross ball at Adam Frizzell's goal.

"I thanked Lionel so much after game for pulling me out of a hole personally," said the 37-year-old Paisley-born midfielder.

"Obviously my mistake at the start got Killie back into the game.

"Lionel getting us back in front was massive and that's what he's capable of. He's capable of that little bit of magic and he provided it there.

"For him coming on it was great and the third goal I thought was a great bit of play from Moulty. He spots Elliott and he finishes it well as well.

"After that I think you could tell we just wanted the game to finish."

Tuesday night's victory officially guaranteed Motherwell's Scottish Premiership status for another season, a great relief for players, management and fans.

Everyone connected with Motherwell had been dreading being overhauled by relegation rivals Hamilton Accies and ending up in the second bottom play-off position which they occupied two seasons ago before a nerve shredding 6-1 two-legged win over Rangers.

"It's much better than being in the play-off that's for sure," Lasley said.

"We spoke about it in the past. It was an experience that we certainly wanted to avoid. We knew this was going to be a massive week.

"We put ourselves in a bit of a situation after losing the two home games after the split.

"But we still felt confident. We still felt we weren't too far away and if anything our two kind of poorer performances I think have ended up getting better results than the two home games against Ross County and Dundee.

"But that's football. It's about putting the ball in the net and we managed to do that against Killie.

"There is great relief but 'do we want to do better next year?' For sure.

"We will enjoy this moment. Our fans will enjoy it I'm sure because it was looking sticky for a while.

"We know how important it is to keep this football club in the top division. There is so much good work going on at this football club off the field.

"We know the primary driver for that work is being in the Premier League. We've managed to keep that status which is fantastic."

Lasley and his mates are looking to end the season with a win in their final league game at Inverness this Saturday, a result which would relegate Caley.

"We want to finish the season as high as we can," Lasley said.

"We are ninth at the moment. Let's see if we can finish as high as we can, go away in the summer and hopefully this football club can push on in every sense on and off the field."