Stephen Craigan's final appearance for Motherwell ended in defeat as Dundee United claimed a 2-0 victory at Fir Park.
The Motherwell captain announced his retirement earlier in the week but he could not end on a high as goals from Johnny Russell and Jon Daly secured a comfortable victory for United.
Russell opened the scoring in the eighth minute after Darren Randolph had twice denied Stuart Armstrong and the midfielder turned provider with 10 minutes to go as he laid the ball to Daly to stroke home from close range.
After a slow opening to the match, the visitors broke the deadlock. Randolph in the Motherwell goal did well to deny Armstrong on two occasions before Russell bundled the ball over the line from close range.
The home side were dealt a further blow after 12 minutes when Steven Hammell was stretchered off and replaced by Tim Clancy following a collision with Danny Swanson.
United came close to doubling their lead when Russell broke away from Clancy on the left flank and his cut-back found John Rankin, who struck the outside of Randolph's post from a tight angle.
Michael Higdon was next to come close to grabbing an equaliser for Motherwell but was adjudged to have strayed offside when trying to meet Chris Humphrey's delivery.
Paul Dixon clipped the top of Randolph's crossbar with an excellent free-kick five minutes before the interval before Higdon came agonisingly close to levelling the game when he powered a header just wide of the target following a pinpoint delivery from Tom Hateley.
Randolph produced a wonderful piece of goalkeeping to keep out Daly's curling effort just before the hour mark and Ryan Dow again went close after connecting with Dixon's cross on 63 minutes.
Scott Robertson passed up a glorious opportunity to extend the visitors' lead after being released by Russell just inside the area, however, the midfielder struck well over the top.
United doubled their advantage with nine minutes remaining, Russell set up Daly, who had the simple task of rolling the ball into the net.
