hamilton accies 1
Bingham (62)
airdrie 1 Victoria (83)
Hamilton Academical crashed out of the Betfred League Cup, finishing a lowly fourth in Group F after an uninspired draw with Lanarkshire rivals Airdrie.
Even a penalty shoot-out bonus point courtesy of a trio of woeful penalties from Airdrie’s Ryan Conroy, Sean Crighton and Dale Carrick failed to mask the disenchantment of Accies manager Martin Canning.
“For us, it has been disappointing,” claimed an under pressure Canning. “We expected to go through.
“There has been a big turnaround for us in terms of personnel and that is going to take time to settle, time to work.
“The last couple of years, we have not changed as many players here and we managed to get through the group without performing as well as we would like.
“For us it is disappointing as we should be qualifying out of the group when you look at the teams who are in it – no disrespect.
“We should be looking to finish top of that group – or at least qualifying from it.”
There should be levels of concern from the South Lanakshire support as Hamilton face Hearts next week to kick-off their Premiership campaign with an under-strength squad in an unforgiving league.
Canning admits they are looking to bring in a further four players ahead of the August transfer deadline.
Defensive frailties were far too obvious at the newly-named Hope CVD Stadium, with Airdrie striker Daryl Duffy slashing an effort the wrong side of the upright before striking the bar with a header in the first half.
The home side finally managed to take the lead on the hour mark as Mickel Miller picked out Rakish Bingham at the edge of the area, and the striker opened the scoring through what looked to be a fortuitous deflection.
The introduction of second-half substitute Joao Victoria inspired the Diamonds and Stevie Findlay’s men were able to equalise with seven minutes remaining.
Victoria was able to traverse the leftwing before playing a neat one-two with Dale Carrick, allowing the Portuguese winger to blast home from just inside the box.