There's a cliche "penalties are a lottery" but that is not true in my opinion. It takes bottle and nerve to step up there in a sudden death situation and do what is needed. I didn't see the penalties last night but but from what I heard, not only did we miss three, we also missed the target with two of them. That is just pathetic and a sign of a player failing to hold their nerve at the crucial moment. I knew we would lose a penalty shootout because our record in shootouts is historically awful, and our record at scoring penalties at crucial times during matches is also pretty poor as well. I believe that it points to a psychological barrier that we have at the club, the small time mentality that runs right through us. There's always been this mentality that "you can't do this, you're only wee Motherwell" and that is drip, drip, drip fed into everyone at our club and that is what costs us dearly, time and time again.

Put it this way, if those same players played for Hearts and found themselves in the same situation as we did after 120 minutes last night, they would have won that shootout with the same takers. Why? Because Hearts have a winning mentality, the polar opposite of what we have.

It's an aspect of Motherwell FC that I truly and utterly despise.