Motherwell boss Graham Alexander hits out at being denied 'stonewall' penalty against Celtic

Rookie referee Chris Fordyce – who had left his fourth official role in the first half to replace injured whistler Willie Collum – failed to point to the spot when Celtic defender Boli Bolingoli clearly handled the ball in the box on 68 minutes to deny Kevin van Veen.

’Well were 2-0 down at the time to goals by Jota and David Turnbull and were unable to score as they went down to a second successive league defeat.

"It was a blatant penalty,” Alexander said. “I could tell by the reaction of the players.

"The lad’s just slapped the ball away. Us getting a penalty against one of the big boys is a rare thing.

"I’ve only been up here nine months and I’m still learning, but learning quickly that it’s easy to give a penalty against us but very, very difficult to give one for us.

"I definitely think VAR would have helped us.

"People talk about 2-0 being a tricky score because you don’t know whether to stick or twist, going for more or just holding onto it.

"Certainly when it goes to 2-1 it puts a bit more pressure on the opponent. Obviously we would have had to score the penalty – that’s conjecture – but certainly we should have had a penalty.

"It was a definite penalty. And I think those instances change the sway of the game.

"When goals go in they change momentums of games and that would have done that certainly.

"When it’s not given it’s maybe easy for us to get a bit despondent. Even when there’s a blatant opportunity to get back in it we don’t get given it.

"Celtic are a good team and you can see that with the quality they have, but my players certainly in the first half were as competitive as we could be.

"But we need those little game defining moments to go for us and they didn’t today.

"The game is always about moments. You see goals against the run of play giving a team a lift and sort of puncturing another team’s momentum.

"I believe in the first half their goal was a little bit against the run of play but they have that quality to open you up and take it.”

Alexander told MFC TV that he he thought his team had really good discipline and structure, certainly in the first half.

He added: "We opened up a little bit more obviously when we went 2-0 down and we wanted to try and get back into it. We needed to score.

"We were looking to score before that. I thought we pressed them really well in the first half when they had it in their defensive third which gave us a few opportunities which we didn’t manage to take.

"We’ve been done on the counter attack in the first goal which I feel we could have defended better but I feel there was a foul in the build-up.

"We have to overcome that. Half-time I was really happy with the players, I thought there was a game there for us to win.

"But the goal quite early – I think it’s five minutes into the second half - it’s a goal of the highest quality.

"As everyone at Motherwell will know, the lad’s capable of that. But we still kept going and we should have had a penalty that gives us a chance to get something from the game but it wasn’t given.

"The game is always about moments. You see goals against the run of play giving a team a lift and sort of puncturing another team’s momentum.

"I believe in the first half their goal was a little bit against the run of play but they have that quality to open you up.

“I don’t remember Liam Kelly making too many saves today. I thought our defensive discipline was good.”

Sixth placed ’Well, on 14 points from nine games, visit Dundee United in the league this Saturday, KO 3pm.