Dundee United manager Jackie McNamara expressed his extreme delight for Mario Bilate after rallying a strike that kept his side on the top of the Scottish Premiership.

McNamara said after the 1-0 defeat of Motherwell: "It was a lovely goal, worthy of winning any match.

"I thought we deserved it to be honest. I thought we put them under pressure in the second-half. We kept plugging away and we got there in the end.

"We've had two hard games already this season and Motherwell were difficult to break down here. In the first half, we found it hard to get in behind them to create any clear-cut chances.

"But I was confident we could get there in the end and so it proved."

Stuart McCall, Motherwell manager, on the other hand, felt that his players deserved a draw for the efforts they had exerted in the game. He said: "I thought we merited a point. But you hold your hands up when someone hits a goal like that."

"We've given goals away in the past which have been sloppy but there's nothing you can do when there's a goal like that. I think we conceded 60 goals last season - even more than Hibs - but they only really had a couple of long-range shots in the first half.

"In the second half, they came down the hill but I can't really remember our keeper Dan (Twardzik) having a save to make. So against a good side I thought we merited a point."

McCall added that his side had a couple of opportunities in the first half and they had a borderline goal which was chopped off for offside.

"He looked almost level and on another time we might have got it."