McCann blast for wasteful Dundee
DUNDEE boss Neil McCann was frustrated with his players for the sitters they missed, including a Scott Allan penalty-kick, and angry with his defenders for not following tactical instructions.
In the end, they went down to goals from Darian MacKinnon, Steven Boyd and a Dougie Imrie penalty as Hamilton Accies produced a convincing scoreline.
McCann has vowed to work the players into the ground in training to get an improvement and said: ‘We created six clear-cut chances to score and missed a penalty.
‘I was disappointed with the goals we conceded, particularly the second one. We worked hard all week to eradicate the space Boyd runs into. We can’t accept that and we will batter the players day in and day in out in until they learn and surrender to us.’
Dundee should have been two goals ahead inside the opening five minutes. Allan was clean through against goalkeeper Gary Woods and he should have drilled it. But, inexplicably, he opted to square the ball to Faissal El Bakhtaoui.
Scott McMann intercepted and his challenge resulted in the ball making its way back to Allan and his shot was saved by Woods.
Then a long ball over the top caught out the Accies defence and El Bakhtaoui was in. Woods made a great block to deny him and the striker then hit the rebound back off the crossbar.
The home team then settled into the game and it was not a huge surprise to see them score in the 23rd minute. From a corner-kick, the ball broke to Greg Docherty and he played a lovely cushioned pass to MacKinnon. The tenacious Accies man found the target with a lovely volley from 18 yards.
The advantage doubled in the 35th minute. The ball bounced and sat up nicely for Boyd, 20 yards out. He clocked that Scott Bain was off his line and, on the spin, he lobbed it over the goalkeeper and into the net for an execution of the highest quality.
To be fair to Dundee, they never gave up and had most of the pressure in the second half. But their finishing was poor.
Substitute Danny Williams missed a sitter in the 71st minute and Marcus Haber also should have pulled a goal back.
Williams was then tripped inside the box but Allan blasted the resultant penalty high over the crossbar.
Accies were themselves awarded a spot-kick with seven minutes remaining when substitute David Templeton was pulled back. Skipper Imrie showed how it should be done, with a powerful left-foot effort.
Accies manager Martin Canning said: ‘Getting the second goal was crucial and that was something we weren’t doing last season. It was a brilliant finish from Steven.’