Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin says his side got exactly what they deserved from Ayr, who ran out comfortable 2-0 winners at New Douglas Park.
Hamilton have ran the Honest Men close this season, losing by single-goal margins on two occasions, with a 2-2 draw in their opening encounter.
But a Ben Dempsey penalty in 12 minutes had Ayr off and running and Sam Ashford latched onto Dipo Akinyemi’s through-ball to smash the ball into the bottom right corner in 27 minutes and end the game as a contest.
Ayr could have ran out more emphatic winners, with Akinyemi unlucky on several occasions, while Accies barely laid a glove on their opponents.
Rankin said: “We can be disappointed with the result, but I thought the performance today was probably one of the poorest we’ve been.
“We’ve been on a good bit of form since the turn of the year and for the first five minutes we had a bit of energy, a wee bit about us, but after that it dropped out.
“The goal changes the game, it goes to 1-0, but after that I thought we were so passive, with no great deal of enthusiasm from our players to take the ball, pass it or keep it.
“We’ve played Ayr four times this season and three times we’ve come off the pitch feeling hard done-by, but we weren’t hard done-by today.
“We didn’t deserve anything out of the game, and that’s the most disappointing thing.”
Accies were without Scott Martin to suspension, while Matty Shiels sat out the game through injury.
Rankin said: “We lost Scotty Martin from the team and maybe I got it wrong. Maybe my selection was wrong.
“We had to try and find somebody to fill Scotty’s role, and we never did that.
“We had a leader back in Dylan McGowan, which you could see, and which you could hear, but apart from that we need leaders on the pitch and for people to stand up and be accountable.
"I'm really disappointed and frustrated. I thought today was a good opportunity for us to pick up three points at home.
"We've played well against Ayr previously, but we never got anywhere near that today."
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