Womentake survivalquest tofinalgame
Gary Doctor insists the pressure is off Hamilton Accies Women as they go into their final SWPL1 game of the season knowing they must beat rivals Dundee United to avoid a relegation play-off
The Accies boss watched his side earn a huge 2-1 win over Aberdeen, who played with 10 players for 84 minutes at New Douglas Park on Sunday, to leave them two points adrift of United going into this weekend’s showdown.
It’s a winner-takes-all clash but Doctor said:“we are in the play-off spot and we can’t be any worse than that so we’ve got nothing to lose this weekend.
“We’ve been in the play-off spot for a while so I feel as though we have already accepted that to a degree, so we have nothing to worry about.
“We got to go to Dundee United with nothing to fear and, hopefully, with a fully fit squad.
“We’ll have had a full week to prepare after playing five games in two weeks, so hopefully that will help.”
Accies have lost 3-2 to United and drawn 2-2 and 1-1 in their previous meetings this term.
”It won’t be easy,”doctor added.“we have had some very close games with Dundee United this season, where we haven’t beaten them, and that is an extra motivation for us to get the result.
“Dundee United have the better options because they know they just have to avoid defeat to avoid the play-offs but we’ve got nothing to lose, so we’ll see what happens.”
Last week Aberdeen were reduced to 10 after just six minutes when Jessica Broadrick was given her marching orders for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity. But it took Accies until the 53rd minute to open the scoring when Lucy Sinclair netted.
In 68 minutes Eilidh Martin doubled their lead and the Dons made a first of it when Eilidh Shore pulled one back 12 minutes from time, but Accies held out
Doctor said:“the priority was to make sure we won our fixture to give ourselves a chance going into the last game and that’s what we did.
“It’s funny because I was thinking recently that it has been years since we played against 10 players. But it put a different pressure and anxiety on the players because the expectation rose.
“We knew we weren’t going to get a better opportunity with them going down to 10 so early in the game.
“It certainly assisted in things because Aberdeen were still quite dangerous in the game with 10 players.
“They have some top players but we didn’t panic.
“We made it hard for ourselves, as usual, but we got what we wanted in the end and that’s the important thing.”