Motherwell boss reveals frustration over 'harsh' red card and 'fortuitious' Celtic opener

Gordon was sent off in stoppage time following a VAR review after initially receiving a booking from referee David Dickinson for a challenge on Celtic substitute Adam Idah. Video replays showed that the Motherwell player’s studs were up as he caught the striker on the back of the ankle but Kettlewell was of the opinion that a yellow card was sufficient punishment.

"I just feel it's so harsh to give the red card," he said. "I think at the time the referee has a look at it, he can see that Liam has made contact with the Celtic attacker, but the first thing you see on a screen is still images and it looks bad, of course. I spoke to the referee after it in a calm fashion just to ask what he saw in the challenge. He spoke about hinging the Celtic player's ankle but my counter-argument to that is you’re talking about Liam Gordon at full stretch not really with any force whatsoever trying to get a toe-end on the ball.

"I acknowledge he doesn't get that toe-end on the ball which I thought he did at the time but I don't think he's come in with any reckless intent or trying to injure the Celtic player. We can look at these things a million times on the screen. I think the referee got it right at the time when he awards Celtic the foul and gave a yellow card. I don't know how many times we need to look at that to try and determine and find a way that it's a red card. There will be a number of other people who will think it's a red card. I'm only giving my view. If that was a tackle on one of my players am I screaming and shouting for a red card? Absolutely not."

Kettlewell revealed Motherwell will now weigh up whether to appeal the decision that, as it stands, will rule Gordon out of next Sunday's League Cup semi-final against Rangers. The Steelmen hit the woodwork twice in the opening 10 minutes through Lennon Miller and Kettlewell rued his side's failure to make the most of their positive start.

"Real disappointment with the end result, but I felt that we started the game incredibly well," he said. "I thought the first quarter of the game we were excellent, carved out a number of good opportunities, hit the woodwork a couple of times, and looked pretty comfortable. I felt we limited Celtic to very little in the first half, there wasn't much for Aston Oxborough to do, there was nothing last ditch, just a couple of good cover challenges.

"Then Celtic got the goal which I thought was a bit fortuitous. I know you make your own luck in this game but there was a wee bit of ricochet for McCowan to get through and then he finishes it well. Up until the Celtic second goal, we felt we were well in the game. I felt we were in a place we needed to be and then the second goal is a killer blow. It's a tough one to take. I feel we can do a little bit better. We know their quality but felt we could have defended our box better on that occasion. Then you start throwing caution to the wind and end up with four strikers on the pitch trying to see if you can chase to get it back to 2-1 and give yourself some sort of footing in the game. But you look at the quality and millions of pounds that start to come off their bench. I've heard a lot of people saying get up and get after them, start hunting the goalkeeper and the centre-backs, but you see in the dying embers of the game how open it is and the type of quality they've got to pick you off. We've got to try and do it methodically and the second goal takes it away from that aspect of the game."