Hamilton are, once again, in the midst of a relegation scrap. They suffered defeat again yesterday, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Accies turned in a resolute performance against Rangers on Sunday, losing 1-0 courtesy of an early Daniel Candeias goal. Goalkeeper Gary Woods returned to action in Govan, and performed excellently, pulling off a number of great saves to keep the scoring at a minimum.
His side walked away from the game with nothing, but Woods still believes Accies had a lot to be happy with at full time.
“It’s never a good start to come here and concede so early, but fair play to the boys, they dug in as you saw in the first half, and we looked threatening at times when we opened up in the second half, Woods said to the Evening Times
“We can take a lot from it though. We’ve been on the end of a few heavy defeats this year, and that’s usually what has happened, we’ve conceded one and then all of a sudden it’s three or four. Today, we showed a bit more resilience and that’s something top build on for the festive period,” he added.
Accies need results, not performances
The English shot-stopper is correct; Hamilton were much better against Rangers. They looked organised and were extremely resilient throughout the match. If it were not for Woods, however, this could have been a horrible afternoon for Martin Canning’s men.
Lafferty’s header in the second half was somehow scooped off the line by Woods. The 28-year old made a number of decent stops alongside that particular save.
While there was a change in performance, the end product was still the same, and that will worry Canning. They have lost five of the last six, scoring three goals, all of them coming in one game. Without a goal-scorer, Accies will continue to struggle after New Year.
Motherwell have started to pull away from Hamilton at the bottom and, if the Steelmen continue to pick up results, they will leave St Mirren, Dundee and Accies fighting to finish 10th.
Performances will not matter to the Accies faithful just now, they need points. They have survived in previous years but, if they are not careful, they could soon be on their way to the Scottish Championship.