Hamilton Accies endured a difficult season, eventually avoiding the relegation playoff place by the skin of their teeth, with goal difference coming into play. Off the field they were also victims of a £1m scam which made their season even more problematic.
With only one defeat in their first four games, it looked like Accies had built upon last season and were in a stronger position, only for six defeats on the bounce to put paid to that. In an up and down year, with Accies only performing in fits and starts, it was a 12 game sequence in the run up to Christmas that saw them lose only three games that laid the foundations for their survival.
The season ended with a run of nine defeats in ten games, with Accies only managing to find the net eight times as ther lack of a top striker meant they flirted with danger. Only the equally poor performances of the teams below them saw them survive.
That survival wasn’t ensured until the final day where a 3-0 defeats the hands of Motherwell proved irrelevant as other results went their way, but it was another poor result against their Lanarkshire rivals who also put them out of the Scottish Cup at the first opportunity.
An early knockout blow in the League Cup meant Accies only really ever had the league to focus on but they struggled to keep key players like Ali Crawford and David Templeton fit for long spells, or to have them play in the seam together as often as they would have liked. With both looking like leaving, the big task of the summer for Martin Canning will be to replace those two and find a more clinical striker on a minimal budget.
