MAIN SEIZED HIS MOMENT, SAYS BOSS

VICTORIOUS Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes last night hailed Curtis Main for seizing his opportunity after the striker broke one of the longest scoring droughts in the club’s history. Main more than repaid his boss for a rare start in place of top scorer Sam Cosgrove, relegated to the bench, as the visitors ran out 3-1 winners at Hamilton. The centre-forward’s brilliantly-taken opener, only his second goal of the season, was Aberdeen’s first in 469 minutes — and their first from open play in nearly 11 hours of football. A thrilled McInnes, reflecting on his team’s first Scottish Premiership win of 2020, said: ‘For me Curtis Main, more than any other player, has had fewer opportunities. ‘Every other player in the forward area has had more minutes and the reason is because you can change wide players. ‘But when you have a 21-goal striker in the building in Sam Cosgrove, it’s different. It’s difficult to leave that out when you are searching for goals. Adam Rooney used to do that when he was here, where he would go four, five, six games without a goal. ‘I’d have strikers banging on my door asking why they weren’t playing — and I’d say because you always expected Adam to score. Sam is maybe lacking a wee bit of confidence and Main was bursting to get that chance. ‘It’s real testament to Curtis’s professionalism, motivation and single-mindedness that he wanted to show he can be the main striker here. ‘I almost felt like a weight had been lifted with that first goal. Main bent his run and scored a lovely goal — and you saw the confidence in the team from there. ‘Then Niall McGinn shows great patience to score the second. And the third shows our ambition, with my left centre-back Andrew Considine crossing for my right wing-back, Connor McLennan, to score. The tenacity has been there but the output in the final third has fallen way short. ‘That was much more like it.’ Accies first-team coach Guillaume Beuzelin said: ‘We warned the players of the danger of this type of game. ‘We knew Aberdeen would be like a wounded animal. ‘I thought we were horrendous in the first half. If we want to compete against that calibre of team, we have to do the basics right. ‘The manner in which we conceded those three goals was terrible.’ Hamilton play relegation rivals Hearts away on Saturday, with Beuzelin adding: ‘It is massive. We need to be prepared for a fight.’