DIPO DOES THE JOB

Double makes difference as below-par Ayr dig deep

FOOTBALL pundits have long recognised that the mark of a title-winning team is being able to pick up points without playing well – and the win that kept Ayr top of the Championship on Friday night could suggest that Lee Bullen’s men might just be on to something.

Bullen said his team put in their worst 90 minutes of the campaign so far in the 3-2 victory away to Hamilton that saw the Honest Men briefly open up a six-point advantage at the top of the table.

Dipo Akinyemi’s double twice had the Honest Men in front at New Douglas Park, only for Accies to peg back their visitors with a Steve Lawson penalty and a Finn

Ecrepont own goal – before Ben Dempsey secured all three points from the spot with eight minutes to go in front of a live BBC Scotland TV audience.

“[It was] possibly our worst performance of the season, to be honest,” Bullen told Ayr’s own Black and White TV after the match, “but we were able to drag three points out from wherever we could.

“The only real pieces of quality we had was Dipo’s two goals, to be fair, and we struggled to show any sort of composure.

“We looked nervous at times, which I suppose you get a little bit – the expectation was on us to win the game, because we’re top and they’re bottom, but if you’d been a neutral there watching that you’d have said Hamilton were the team at the top of the league and we were the team at the bottom.”

Akinyemi’s two goals cemented his place at the top of the Championship goalscoring charts, too, with his tally of 13 nearly twice as many as his closest rivals, Cove Rangers’ Connor Scully and Zach Robinson of Dundee.

“[They were] two wonderful, wonderful finishes, and he fought his corner really, really well,” Bullen continued.

“I think the big man gets fouled a lot, but he doesn’t seem to get the fouls. I don’t know why – maybe because he’s so strong – but he showed real quality with his finishes and I think that ultimately that was the difference between the two teams.”

* Watch the full post-match interview online at ayrunitedfc.co.uk/ ayr-united-tv.