Shell-shocked Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin says he’s up for the challenge of hauling them back from League One next season.
And the Accies head coach says they weren’t relegated because they lost the play-off final to Airdrie 6-5 on penalties, but a spell between October and December where they picked up only four points from nine games.
Hamilton only won seven league games all season, and five of those came after reinforcements arrived in January.
Rankin says there are no positives to be taken from the 2-2 aggregate draw with the Diamonds, and they have to evaluate what went wrong this season.
He said: “I feel we deserved more than that.
“I’m hugely disappointed that we're in the situation that we’re in, but if I look at the team that’s on the pitch today, it wasn’t that team that was relegated.
“We didn’t get relegated today. We got relegated between October and December, when everybody had discredited us at one point.
“This team have been behind and almost out of sight on so many occasions, and they’ve risen to the challenge and come back.
“We managed to fight back to get ourselves in a situation where we could save ourselves, and ultimately we were nearly there, but never quite got over the line.
“That’s the disappointing thing. The dressing room is quiet, I’m gutted for them as players and individuals, because they’ve given me everything they have, and I’m really disappointed.
“But if I look at it over the whole, it wasn’t over the last four months.
“The players over the last four months have given us everything.
“There has been fight, there has been desire, and quality at times, when we added them in January and they’ve helped us.
“But we didn’t get to the ultimate bit that I wanted to get to, which was safety.”
Rankin says much better planning has to be put into next season as they bid to bounce back from the third tier.
He said: “I’m up for the challenge, I’m always up for a challenge. If I wasn’t up for the challenge and I thought I couldn’t do the job, I wouldn’t be here.
“What I can say is that over the first part of the season I don’t think we competed very well in the league.
“In the second part of the season we made the team and individuals better, and I think they got us into the position where we were at 5pm this afternoon – we were fighting, and had a fighting chance.
“We have to fight our way back, we have to take time to rethink and evaluate what has gone wrong this season.
“We need to have a strategy where we’re ready to bounce back, and do it quickly.
“Last summer was turmoil, with regards to who was in charge, who was coming in, who the manager was going to be, what players were there.
“I don’t think it can be like that, we need to have a forward plan and be ready to get recruitment and see where we are on that.
“We need to have a plan in place right at this moment in time, so we can take the club forward and get it back to challenging, and being in the top flight.”
Rankin added: “I think after we evaluate and look at what the situation has been this season, we’ll come back and be ready to challenge, and we will be stronger.
“We can learn from the mistakes.
“I know the group of guys and what’s in the dressing room, and I’m 100 per cent certain everybody will be ready for the battle.”
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