Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell says his side lacked mental strength as they lost 2-1 to St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.

The Lanarkshire side went from a winning position, through Andy Halliday’s fourth-minute penalty, to losing with two goals in the last four minutes through Taylor Stevens and Bozo Mikulic, both from Graham Carey corners.

That left Motherwell with three defeats on the bounce, and two in a row here in Perth, and Stuart Kettlewell says they simply weren’t good enough.

When asked about conceding twice in the last four minutes, the Motherwell boss said: “It’s evident that we completely switch off.

“We don’t stand strong inside our penalty box and it’s clear to see, that’s three set-plays that we’ve conceded in the last two weeks.

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“We know St Johnstone are not the biggest side in the world, but we know they’ve got good delivery, and you felt that little bit building towards it where they were getting a couple of first contacts.

“For me, that’s where we need to ask the question about that mental strength, that mental capacity, to be able to stand strong.”

Kettlewell added: “I didn’t feel that we did well in the second half, we started to drop off the game, and you can’t do that in this league.

“That wasn’t the message at half-time – we wanted to treat it as if we were level in the game and were the team that needed to score the next goal, to try and be on the ascendency and the front foot.

“But once you start to drop off, you start to concede that pressure, and territory, and if that’s where we find ourselves in the game – which will be the case further on in the season – you need to have a far better determination to defend your penalty box, and we simply didn’t have that.

“From a leading position with four minutes of normal time to go and you end up losing, for me that’s inexcusable.”