Motherwell want no Ibrox penalty answer from SFA

Motherwell are seeking an explanation for a rejected penalty claim at Ibrox but manager Jens Berthel Askou is keen to move on from the incident.

Referee David Dickinson waved play on when Lukas Fadinger went down under a challenge from Emmanuel Fernandez in the closing moments of their 1-0 defeat to Rangers and the action resumed quickly.

Askou was convinced Motherwell should have had a spot-kick and has not changed his opinion, while chief executive Brian Caldwell has contacted the Scottish Football Association referees department.

"I haven't spoken much to Brian since but I think it's probably a question of not having the angles that supports what you can clearly see in some of the angles that we have from our photographers," the Dane said.

"But I can see that the situation, even on the pitch from all sorts of angles wherever you look at it, speaks for itself.

"The communication between them and Brian I think it's a good, open, fair, honest discussion.

"Eventually maybe they will comment like they do sometimes on some of these things, and I will leave that up to them.

"For us it's closed, there's nothing we can do about it. We feel it was a wrong decision and we stand by that.

"It doesn't really make sense to spend a lot of energy on getting all sorts of explanations after the game for me. My most important thing is to make sure that we move on.

"In football and in life, sometimes the things you cannot control, they go your way, sometimes they don't. You have to accept it and move on. It was a hard one, of course, but we don't have time to dwell on it."

Celtic visit Fir Park on Tuesday and Askou is looking forward to facing the "risk and reward" approach of opposition manager Wilfried Nancy.

The champions have won two in a row under the Frenchman, who started with four successive defeats, but have yet to keep a clean sheet since his arrival.

Motherwell concede for the first time in seven games in their Ibrox loss, while they have failed to score in four of those outings.

"It's going to be a game between two teams that are very dynamic and with a lot of rotations and a lot of interesting challenges that we can face each other with," said Askou.

"From a tactical point of view it's going to be a lovely challenge for us to produce some of the same quality like we did the other day and then this time hopefully show a little bit more sharpness when the opportunities come.

"They are growing as a team and they are finding more and more structure within whatever Nancy has brought to the team and they are starting to score more goals.

"I see already that they're starting to look sharper, more confident, more natural and they are converting more chances to goals and that has lifted their confidence. It's going to be a big test for us to see if we can keep them from scoring.

"There's some risk-reward there that we need to see if we can make to our advantage."