Martin Canning bemoans defensive frailties after Motherwell defeat

Hamilton boss Martin Canning was left frustrated after yet another sloppy defensive performance saw his side end up on the wrong side of a 2-1 defeat against Motherwell.

Accies took the lead in the first Lanarkshire derby of the season thanks to Ioannis Skondras' fine strike, before two defensive lapses cost them dearly.

Canning has repeatedly highlighted the need to smarten up at the back, but saw Skondras get his feet tangled up before hooking the ball straight to Andy Rose for an equaliser, before Peter Hartley was left unmarked from six yards to score the winner early in the second half.

It's really frustrating,'' the Hamilton boss said.You talk about teams finding a way to win, we keep finding a way to lose which is disappointing and we're making individual mistakes.

You look at St Johnstone, Hearts and Rangers, individually we're not doing our jobs well enough and it's costing us. You can't have that.

When people are putting in as much as they are and people make basic mistakes and errors, they cost you big time and that's what's happened today, which is frustrating because there's not a lot in the game, same as the other three.

We're quite a few bodies down but still able to compete with teams of that calibre. For us its disappointing but we have to lick our wounds and get on with it.''

Hamilton went into the game on the back of the news yesterday that the club had been victim to an elaborate fraud'', which had cost the cluba substantial sum of monies''.

However Canning insisted it had played no issue in his side's performance as they fell away after a bright first-half.

He said: We can't affect it, we can only do our job on the pitch and work away, and the players put in the effort. Ninety-nine per cent of the time I can never ask for any more. They give everything they have got and run themselves into the ground.

It's not been discussed and that's not for me to talk about.''

Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson was delighted with a battling win that sees them up to fourth in the table.

We picked a team to scrap, battle and fight,'' he said.It's hard to take a touch on that pitch, it's a hard pitch and levels things (between the sides) but we played the game we wanted to.

I thought we out-scrapped and out-battled them and thoroughly deserved the win in the end at a hard place to come.''

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