Motherwell's winless run is getting embarrassing, but Rangers showing gives us hope for Aberdeen clash, says Stephen O'Donnell

Stephen O'Donnell admits Motherwell's winless run is becoming embarrassing, but insists their second half showing against Rangers can be the catalyst to help them stop the rot.

The Steelmen have gone 15 games without a victory after a 2-0 defeat to the Ibrox side on Christmas Eve.

It looked like being a long afternoon for O'Donnell's side when early strikes from Kieran Dowell and Todd Cantwell put Gers in command.

But the hosts rallied in the second half and had a big penalty shout when Mika Biereth had his shirt pulled in the box by Cyriel Dessers.

A trip to Pittodrie now awaits for Stuart Kettlewell's struggling Steelmen tonight and defender O'Donnell said: "It does need to happen soon because it’s been a long run.

"It’s getting frustrating, it’s getting embarrassing.

“But in among that there have been some very good performances along with some bad ones.

“Every team that goes on a good or bad run has results they grind out. We need to look at one game. The first half against Rangers wasn’t good enough, the second half was much better.

“We have a difficult away game against Aberdeen and we will look to be competitive and keep ourselves in the game. Hopefully we can put an end to this run."

Reflecting on the performance against Rangers, the 31-year-old Wishaw ace said: "It was obvious to see that it wasn’t good enough in the first half. The frustrating thing is we are given all the information. Not that we needed it too much because when we turned up and saw the conditions we knew it would be a basic game. But we didn’t do that.

“We shot ourselves in the foot with the first goal. The second goal is a good finish, but it came from a cross into the box. But what is positive, and we’ve seen it time and time again, is there