Dougie Imrie says Hamilton have left themselves with a mountain to climb in their relegation battle, starting at home to Ross County today (Saturday).

Imrie was bitterly disappointed in the 2-1 loss at Partick Thistle last weekend and pointed out two gilt-edged chances Hamilton had to secure three points.

It leaves Accies with a lot to do in their bid to avoid the drop, and Imrie said: "We’ve put ourselves into a bad position going into the Ross County game and now we’ve left ourselves with a mountain to climb.

“Saturday’s game becomes massive, crucial, and we have to go and win that game – that’s it, end of story.

“I’m bitterly disappointed with everyone, but we can’t get too down with ourselves.

“We have another massive game on Saturday, we’ve got to lift ourselves up and go again.

“It will be another hard week but we have to lift ourselves for it.

“It’s getting tighter and tighter. We’ve been here before. We’ve got to lift ourselves again and go into the game with a bit of positivity throughout the week and we can hopefully get a result.”

Imrie didn’t hold back on his assessment of Saturday’s costly defeat, which cut Hamilton’s lead over Thistle to two points, and three over County.

He said: “It’s not good enough. We had two golden opportunities. Rakish Bingham with the first one takes a bad touch, he’s got to do better and he knows that himself – if he scores it’s 2-0.

Imrie admits Saturday's clash at home to Ross County is a must-win

“Marios Ogkmpoe had a great opportunity as well, he was through one-on-one and at 3-0 the game’s done.

“They got a lift from that and then for some reason we allowed arguably their best opportunity of a goal in Kris Doolan to be free in the six-yard box with a free header and he took it well.

“The second goal was a bit fortunate. It was a good strike but we should be doing better, it goes through a couple of players.”

Imrie added: “I can’t be too critical. Obviously we’ve lost the game, everyone will be disappointed.

“But anybody at the game saw the chances we had, we had two one-on-ones, they’ve got to be buried and the game put to bed.

“In the second half we had the two best opportunities in the game and didn’t take them.

“Those are chances players should be scoring, they’re strikers – but we have to do better at the other end as well. We have to defend better.

“But all credit to Partick Thistle, they got a lift from that and came out and won the game, so we’re bitterly disappointed.”

Hamilton welcome midfielder Darian MacKinnon and striker Antonio Rojano back from suspension but lose Xavier Tomas and Scott McMann.