Consistency is a real problem

Michael Devlin says inconsistency is holding Hamilton back and stifling their ambition.

The Accies captain cut a frustrated figure as he compared Tuesday’s win over Aberdeen to a crushing 1-0 loss to basement battlers Dundee.

He said:“it seems to be an issue with the club, certainly in the first team for the last wee while, that we can’t find that consistency required to try and push up the league and probably establish ourselves in the way that the likes of St Johnstone have done, where they can string a run of results together.

“That’s what takes you away from the bottom of the league and we haven’t been able to do that.

“We need to get to the bottom of why we can’t seem to find that consistency. It can only be individually, because we were set up exactly the same as we were against Aberdeen and the manager was even more forceful with his point and the mentality that we had to go into that game with.

“We need to really have a chat amongst ourselves, and find out why we can’t get this consistency – quite frankly it’s not good enough, and it’s why we will always struggle.

“As a club, as the fans and the players, we want to push up the league and want to be successful, and we don’t want to just be safe every year and be 10th... we want to show ambition, purpose and try to progress as much as you can.

“We want to push up that league and we feel, on our day, that we’re as good as anybody outside Celtic, and if we can find that consistency I have no doubt we can do it, but that’s the issue for us.

“Up until Saturday performance levels had been good, but it just wasn’t good enough on Saturday and that’s why we lost 1-0.

“It’s hugely disappointing; had we won we would have distanced ourselves from the bottom of the league, and from Dundee.”