Pascali thwarted by sharp-eyed referee Thomson

KILMARNOCK defender Manuel Pascali admitted that he had hoped to escape the vigilance of referee Craig Thomson when he headed home the “goal” which would have secured only the club’s third SPL win of the season and edged them closer to a top-six place.

The defender’s header was chalked off, though, after the officials spotted the Italian holding down the Motherwell captain, Stephen Craigan, as he rose above him at the set piece. It left Kilmarnock with their sixth draw of the campaign and Motherwell men six points behind Rangers but still in second place.

“I thought I had scored,” said Pascali. “Basically, yeah, I used my body to get the goal and, OK, he saw it really well and I was just a little bit unlucky because maybe 90 per cent of the time referees wouldn’t see that, so it wasn’t my day. I have scored two goals against them before and I thought I had come away with the goal again but I just have to be really happy because we didn’t concede any goals.

“It’s the first time we haven’t conceded a goal in ages, and coming here is difficult, but we came away with a good point.”

The last SPL clean sheet came eight games ago, back in August, against Hearts. But following up last weekend’s draw with Celtic with a point against another of the top-four sides will go down as a decent enough afternoon’s work for the visitors.

“I think we looked pretty solid but we maybe missed a little bit of something in the last 20 yards,” added Pascali. “I am happy with the draw.”

Motherwell manager Stuart McCall was also content to emerge with a share of the spoils. “We started the game very well and we had a couple of chances but then they came back into it. We weren’t at our best but we can’t be at our best week in week out. I was delighted with how well we defended. We were strong. We can be better but there are positives to take out of it.”