IAN BARACLOUGH still has his eye on a perfect 10 as he figures out a Motherwell escape route from the dreaded play-off place.

A 2-1 defeat to Partick Thistle on Saturday leaves Well in 11th place seven points adrift of the Jags and XX behind Ross County after last night's result in Paisley heading into the split.

Victory at Firhill would have changed the complexion of that outlook substantially as a recent run of form has seen the grey clouds hanging over Fir Park show signs of parting.

Baraclough acknowledges his team's failings in the second half allowed Thistle into the game to leave the Steelmen sitting precariously second bottom of the SPFL Premiership.

However, going into the last five games there is still hope for Well as County, Thistle and Kilmarnock will inevitably all drop points.

And the Motherwell boss is focused in his belief of reeling at least one of them in and haul his team up a place to safety.

He said: "The second half let us down. We are disappointed with it, we are disappointed that the travelling 1600 fans didn't have too much to shout about after the break and that's not happened too much in the last couple of months.

"We are in 11th spot and we've got to go and win games of football against the teams around us to drag ourselves back up their again and make sure that after we've played for the 15 points available we are in at least 10th spot."

It was a re-jigged look to the Lanarkshire side as they fielded three in-form strikers in an attempt to gun down Thistle.

With winger Marvin Johnson out injured, Lee Erwin, who had scored three goals in the two games prior to Saturday, was shuffled out to the left wing.

That allowed Baraclough to deploy Scott McDonald, who has struck three goals in six games, alongside leading scorer John Sutton, who has 11 goals to his credit including four in his last three appearances, up front.

I t was a system which showed some signs of promise in the first half before stuttering to a halt after the break as 21-year-old Erwin saw his opportunities to run at the Jags defence dry up.

"I still felt we had enough firepower and drive from midfield to go and win a game of football," said Baraclough of being without Johnson or midfielder Conor Grant.

"It's a different type of player. You are asking Lee Erwin to go and be that third striker over on the far side and he never really had a chance second half to go at their full-back to cause them any problems.

"Marvin is a different type of player, but you have to deal with not having players at your disposal at times and I still felt we had enough in the team and the squad to win three points."

The decision to play all three nearly paid off within the first minute when the trio combined perfectly.

Good work on the flank by Erwin saw a short back pass to Thistle goalkeeper Scott Fox intercepted by McDonald. The Australian laid off to Sutton as he rounded the keeper, but a desperate challenge saw his shot at an unguarded goal trundle just wide," Baraclough told MFC TV.

"We started well, but you can't pick out individual incidents. We put ourselves in good positions to go and put the ball in the back of the net.

"That one didn't go for us but we carried on and kept good possession. We were asking questions of them at that time.

"At half-time you just ask them to step it up a little bit in certain areas and we couldn't recreate that to go on and give ourselves a chance to put the ball into the danger area enough."