Jens Berthel Askou admits his side’s lack of sharpness is “one of the major reasons” why Motherwell have not tipped results in their favour.

Saturday’s defeat at Tynecastle extends the Steelmen’s winless run to five matches, but the Dane is “positive” his side can find their cutting edge in the split.

“Earlier in the season, we didn’t need many chances to score goals; now we need a little bit more. And we’re working on that every week, and that’s football.

“Sometimes you have spells like that, but I’m really positive that we created these chances in a difficult place to create chances.”

Askou labelled the award of Lawrence Shankland’s penalty as “very soft”, and VAR urged Matthew McDiarmid to consult the video monitor.

Askou asked what Stephen Welsh was expected to do against a player “dribbling” with his head at ground level.

“It’s a shame for the game that it gets decided like that.”

“You can argue every time there’s contact that there’s a foul. Then it’s about the amount of contact, the speed of contact, the situation.”

Despite the defeat, Askou was encouraged by Motherwell’s display.

“But what I want to underline again is that I’m really, really proud of our performance.

“We took control of a very difficult game against a very good team who are really, really good at what they do, who have an atmosphere that really drives them and can get you emotionally unstable if you’re not there. We dealt with that extremely well.

“Some of the play we set up in the second half, leading to our chances, also the goal, was absolutely outstanding.”