Soft play almost ruled Louis Moult out of Partick Clash

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee revealed in-form striker Louis Moult almost missed their 1-1 Ladbrokes Premiership draw with Partick Thistle after being injured by a soft toy.

Moult hit four goals the previous weekend against Hamilton to take his season tally to seven in 210 minutes of action, but the striker struggled to make an impact, along with the rest of his team-mates, in the first half at Firhill.

Chris Erskine slotted home a 31st-minute opener after being set up by Steven Hammell's misplaced pass and Ade Azeez failed to capitalise on three one-on-ones for the hosts after the break.

But Motherwell improved after Scott McDonald moved up front and the striker headed an 83rd-minute equaliser from Richard Tait's cross. The Australian was wrongly denied a goal by an offside flag 20 minutes earlier when he nodded in from close range after Ben Heneghan had headed on Keith Lasley's free-kick.

McGhee said: We were poor in the first half, we never really got going. One of the things was that Moulty has not trained all week. Moulty hurt his hamstring when he stood on his child's toy.

So that was a worry all week but he declared fit this morning after a fitness test. But that's why we took him off.

So there was that and the first half we weren't connected and didn't have the team performance we had of late.

But thankfully after losing a really disappointing goal - obviously Hammy doesn't make those sort of mistakes and we will forgive him for that.... But the second half was much, much better, we dug in and scored two goals.

I just watched Scotty's first one and it's nothing like offside, it was ridiculously onside, which is disappointing. But it might only have been one anyway. We kept going and eventually got a goal which I think we deserved in the second half.

We could have won it, they had a couple of one-on-ones earlier in the second half. Given the first-half performance I think we will settle for a draw.''

Thistle manager Alan Archibald rued the missed opportunities to finish Motherwell off.

I thought we controlled the first half and created a number of chances but at the moment we look like we need to score two goals to win a game,'' he said.It's very frustrating.

Motherwell came out the second half and probably controlled the midfield for 10-15 minutes but in that time we had two very good chances, and I think if we take one then the game's dead and buried. But every team you play will always create a chance.''

As well as being the main culprit for missing chances, Azeez was told he could have earned his team a penalty midway through the half.

After being told McDonald's disallowed goal was onside, Archibald said: Someone said that but we didn't get the penalty either when Ade was fouled but didn't go down. He's too honest. We need to get that in his game. I'm not telling him to dive but if there's contact then go down.''