Stephen O’Donnell knows Motherwell have let their fans down, but hopes they can vent their frustrations and roar Motherwell to a shock win over Celtic on Sunday.

The Lanarkshire side have come to the end of a sequence of four away games in a row, falling to three defeats and a draw.

In the latter two of those, Motherwell were knocked out of the Scottish Cup at St Johnstone, before losing to the same opposition at McDiarmid Park in the Premiership as well.

Andy Halliday’s fourth-minute penalty had the visitors in the lead until Taylor Steven levelled in 86 minutes, with Bozo Mikulic netting the winner two minutes later.

O’Donnell is well aware of the task facing Motherwell as they come up against defending champions Celtic, but hopes home advantage can help.

He said: “You go through spells in seasons where it’s poor runs, poor performances.

“I think what we have is a management staff that get you in, work you hard and you know your role and what’s expected of you.

“That just has to go again. When players under perform, that’s sadly the downside of football.

“It will be nice to be back at Fir Park, the fans quite rightly will have their frustrations to vent out.

“Hopefully they can vent them out as we put in a display against the best team in the league and get a result.

“It would be a great catalyst to maybe rebuild our confidence if that’s what is missing.

“Certainly, it’s a game on telly – you don’t need any extra motivation for what will hopefully be a good performance.”

O’Donnell admits Motherwell let fans down again in Perth, but also themselves.

He said: “It’s pretty frustrating. The most frustrated I’ve been because in previous weeks we’ve not really given ourselves a chance - and we did that today.

“We started well, obviously get the goal. Not sure if it was a penalty but we’ll take it, we score it.

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“And I thought we created some good chances in the first half. They had some of the ball but so did we.

“I thought it wasn’t the worst game. We were winning, in control and they only troubled [keeper] Ellery Balcombe once in the first half.

“We come back out and put in a display that was similar to last week’s first half.

“That has happened a few times now so we are really frustrated and really disappointed.

“We could’ve hung on. But if we were sitting here with a 1-1 or a win there would still be questions needing answered because we weren’t good enough.”

O’Donnell added: “Players in the dressing room were angry, frustrated. To have the opportunity to react from a defeat last week in the cup... we let a lot of people down, most importantly ourselves.

“But obviously the fans and the club, they came in their numbers. We had the chance to rectify that but we didn’t manage do it.

“That’s the really disappointing thing because we were in the game, came out second half thinking more of the same and we will break this team down and get another chance.”

O’Donnell says lapses in concentration cost Motherwell, but St Johnstone are in a false position.

He said: “When you give them so much of the ball for the second half, they are going to create chances.

“There are more balls coming in, there’s more last-ditch defending. And eventually they break you down. That’s what Celtic do to teams when they have the ball so much.

“You can hang on and then just that one bit of quality, that one lapse in concentration. And it’s just been happening too much for us.

“St Johnstone, for where they are in the league, I think if you watch all the games they probably don’t deserve to be where they are on general play.

“But moments have gone against them. I was more than happy for moments to go against them today but it just didn’t seem to happen.”