Motherwell rarely have good days in Ibrox and Sunday was no exception. Stephen Robinson rightly apologised to those in the Sandy Jardine West Corner. It was the least he could do.
There was one brief moment of cheer for those in the away enclave. Bowman got us interested when his turn inside the box offered the freedom to square across goal for his striking partner. Main's touch levelled the game and had us on our feet. Surely we would make a game of it now?
Not the best ticket in town
There was a groan when McHugh collected his regular booking (though TV pictures reveal that Morelos took a tumble) then despair when, within five minutes, he got his marching orders for a handball inside the box. We knew that our chance of a point disappeared down the tunnel along with our unhappy midfielder and our dismissed manager.
We did not expect the calamitous cave in that followed. Before we had time to adjust to the loss of McHugh space was left in the middle of the penalty area for Morelos to exploit. We were 3-1 behind at the interval.
The game was gone and the half-time substitution of Rose for Bowman suggested that we would shut up shop and minimise the loss. Instead we managed to concede a further four. In truth it could have been worse.
We can be grateful that results elsewhere did us no harm. St Mirren and Dundee did the decent thing and took a point apiece from their meeting while Hamilton’s heavy defeat in Perth keeps them in tenth.
We have Aberdeen after the weekend’s internationals then the busy eight game December madness before the winter break. If we can keep our head above the bottom pair before importing a few fresh faces in January we may yet escape the season with our top flight status intact.