How have the best team to watch in Scotland only won one game?

The best football at Motherwell in years? Absolutely. The best football to watch in Scotland right now? You would be pushed to argue against it.

Playing out from the back, a goalkeeper acting as an outfield player, coupled with impressive, intricate passages of play makes them an exciting watch no matter who they're playing.

Former Heart of Midlothian and Dundee United full-back Allan Preston told Sportsound on Saturday he "loves watching Motherwell under this manager", while Well icon James McFadden has proclaimed there is "loads to love" about his old team's exploits.

"We can all agree it's an enjoyable style," he added.

But what does it mean after a dominant display against Falkirk on Saturday crumbled to defeat? And how can it be that the team arguably playing the slickest football in Scotland have only won one of their eight league games?

How do Motherwell play?

Motherwell were excellent for the first 45 minutes against Falkirk. Ibrahim Said skipped past two Falkirk defenders before slotting the ball past the goalkeeper and was unfortunate to have his goal ruled out.

Moments later, though, Said strolled through the Falkirk midfield to set up Tawanda Maswanhise for an opening goal that did count.

From then on, it was relentless pressure from the hosts, who had nine shots, 21 touches in the opposition box and 37 final-third entries before the break.

Motherwell's pass map from Saturday's defeat shows the intricacy of their play

What is perhaps a telling stat of Motherwell when they're in full flow is the amount of passes and what they do with them.

On Saturday, they had 571 passes - double that of their opponents. Of those, 184 of them were played forward compared to 81 back, while 115 were successful final-third passes, while their visitors conjured just 46.

Apart from against Celtic and Rangers, Motherwell have come out on top in total passes and had the best pass completion rate in every other game. Barring the match at Tynecastle, they also had the most in the final third, too.

Like a lot of this season, a chunk of their good first-half play on Saturday was a dream to watch, with Elliot Watt instrumental in the middle of the park, but Motherwell could not sustain it.

What went wrong for Askou's side?

Motherwell manager Askou admitted his side's first-half performance was "fantastic" and partly blamed poor refereeing decisions for his side's inability to take anything from the game.

Said's opener was ruled out for a minor infringement, while the Dane was aggrieved at Scott Arfield's winner standing after an alleged tug on Paul McGinn's jersey.

"I'm extremely disappointed with a couple of things," he said.

"Happy with the first half, I thought we were excellent and scored two beautiful goals.

"We should have scored another one and I don't think I'm ever going to understand how they disallowed that goal.

"That's one of the worst VAR decisions I've seen in my career so far - until it got beaten in the second half when Paul McGinn gets pulled just before he's about to hit the ball [for Scott Arfield's goal]."

However, that's far from the only problem for the Fir Park side, given they've only picked up eight points from eight games.

Arfield's 79th-minute winner means Motherwell have now conceded four goals in the last 15 minutes of the second half. Only Livingston (six) have conceded more in the league this season.

Even more damning for Motherwell, they have lost 12 points from winning positions in the Premiership this season, more than any other team. If they had managed to hold on to those points, they would have been top at full-time.

"We show up on Monday and then we look at what we need to do better," Askou said.

"You move on. Right now, we all need to clear our heads a little bit, but Monday is a new week, there's a game we need to win next week and that's what we'll set out to do."