KEITH LASLEY today revealed his concern that Motherwell's controversial defeat by St Mirren could have a disastrous effect on the Fir Park club's transfer budget for next season.

Stuart McCall's men had appeared to have all three points in the bag against the Paisley side, until stand-in whistler Iain Brines mistakenly adjudged that Stephen McManus had handled in the box with just four minutes to go, when the stopper had clearly been hit in the face by the ball.

Subsequently, Kenny McLean stroked home the penalty and Stevie Thompson struck the winner a moment later and Well shipped a disastrous defeat that has put Aberdeen firmly in the driving seat in the race for second place and left fourth-placed Dundee United breathing down the Steelmen's neck just six points back.

With the prize money breakdown for this inaugural season of the SPFL Premiership ranging from £1.68m for a second placed finish, to £1.44m for third place and £1.27m for fourth, Las has no doubt about the possibly damaging implications of Brines' blunder.

The Motherwell captain said: "Prize money-wise there is a world of difference between finishing second and finishing third or even worse fourth. We are talking £240,000 between second and third and then another £170,000, if you drop down to fourth - for a club like Motherwell that has huge implications.

"That type of money is the difference between players being offered another deal and new players being signed and more cost-cutting and pruning of the squad.

"With things as tight as they are, decisions like the one that cost us three points on Saturday can be very damaging indeed.

"From our point of view what is most frustrating is that the linesman was ideally placed to make the call and did not.

"The referee was not as well placed but chose to make a call that, as video evidence has shown, was wrong.

"Subsequently, it turned the game on its head and we have left St Mirren Park empty-handed from a game we should have taken all three points from."

Normally after such a painful defeat any team is desperate to get back into action as soon as possible, but with the Lanarkshire side's ranks decimated by injury Las admits that the two-week gap to his side's next game with Celtic, at Fir Park a week on Saturday, is a silver lining.

Lasley said: "One glance at our subs' bench would have told you how stretched we were. But the two-week break will give the likes of Shaun Hutchinson and James McFadden the time to recover for the Celtic game.

"Hopefully it will also give us the time to put this defeat behind us and move on."