In eight league games this season when Hamilton have taken the lead, they had held on for the victory only once before last night, but they improved that ratio by holding out for a deserved win over an insipid Aberdeen at the Superseal Stadium.

An early Alex D’Acol penalty was enough for Martin Canning’s side to move into the top six of the table, while the seriously off-colour visitors now face up to the challenge of taking on Celtic on Saturday. If they play anywhere near as badly as they did here, it could be a massacre.

Hamilton made two changes to their side from the draw with Partick Thistle last time out, Massimo Donati being forced to sit out through injury and being replaced by Michael Devlin, while birthday boy Rakish Bingham had to settle for a place on the bench as Eamonn Brophy’s goal at Firhill earned him a place in the frontline.

Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes decided to stick with most of the men who took Aberdeen to the League Cup final with Saturday’s win over Morton, Niall McGinn being the only man to drop down to the bench with Wes Burns coming in on the right.

That decision looked to have backfired in the early stages as the Dons looked simultaneously to be suffering a Hamden hangover while punch drunk from the suffocating pressure applied by the hosts.

Accies were buzzing here, there and everywhere, and Docherty might have done better than blaze high and wide from the edge of the area in the opening minutes.

They didn’t have to wait long for an even better opportunity to open the scoring though, as Anthony O’Connor was adjudged to have pulled back D’Acol in the area as he received a dinked ball from Dougie Imrie. The forward hit the deck, and referee Willie Collum pointed to the spot.

McInnes was apoplectic in the Aberdeen dugout at the award, and his mood wasn’t helped when he saw it back after the match.

“I thought it was very soft and having watched it again I don’t believe it’s a penalty,” McInnes said.

“I spoke to Willie about it after the game and he’s obviously seen it differently which can happen.

“He says he’ll look at it again, but there is no contact there. For me, D’Acol has backed in and then fell back and down, and my player has done nothing wrong, there’s no infringement there, and I think it’s very harsh to have a penalty against us.”

D’Acol didn’t so much dust himself down as brush off those pesky black astroturf pellets, before slotting the ball low into the net past the despairing dive of Joe Lewis.

Graeme Shinnie tried to drag Aberdeen back into it as he drove forward from midfield and fired a stinging shot just over, and finally the visitors looked to be coming alive.

Moments later, Burns broke clear on the right and Adam Rooney was only denied a tap-in from his cross by a great clearance by Grant Gillespie round on the cover from right-back.

An intricate exchange between Maddison and Jonny Hayes in the Hamilton area then had the latter in on Gary Woods, but the goalkeeper stood tall to block his close-range effort.

Aberdeen weren’t exactly piling on the pressure, but Mark Reynolds went close to nodding them level as he met a Maddison free-kick at the back post, before he almost headed into his own net moments later as he tried to guide a kick-out back to Lewis.

From the corner, Gillespie found acres of space at the back post, where he was unlucky to see his fierce effort deflected away from goal by one of his own players.

Visiting manager McInnes may have had some choice words with his players at the interval as they were straight on the front foot at the re-start, and he had some seriously choice words for the referee as Darian MacKinnon clambered all over the top of McLean in the area in an incident eerily reminiscent of the one Hamilton were awarded a penalty for early on. This time though, Collum was unmoved.

“If [Hamilton]’s is a penalty, then when Kenny McLean gets hauled to the ground near the penalty spot that was even more of a penalty,” said a vexed McInnes.

“Sometimes they go for you, but the referee sees it differently. He may well view it differently when he sees it again.”

Rooney then headed at Woods from a Hayes cross as the Aberdeen cavalry charge finally looked to be cranking into gear, but just after the hour manager McInnes was forced into a triple substitution with their momentum rather slipping away.

If anything though, Accies looked the more likely on the break, and Gillespie might have done better on two occasions than fire straight at Lewis.

Aberdeen substitute Miles Storey skewed a glorious chance wide at the death, rather summing up the efforts of this lacklustre Dons outfit who headed north with everything they deserved from the game.

"It’s vital we build on this on Saturday,” said Hamilton manager Martin Canning after the game as he tried to keep a lid on things.

“We’ve been playing well but haven’t been picking up enough points. Tonight was huge for the players. I’ve said they are playing well and working hard but when you get the three points it justifies that.”

HAMILTON ACADEMICAL: Woods; Gillespie, Sarras, Devlin, Sowah; Imrie, Crawford (Longridge, 93’) MacKinnon, Docherty Redmond, 84’); Brophy (Kurtaj, 59’), D’Acol.

Scorer: D’Acol (pen, 6’)

ABERDEEN: Lewis; Logan, O’Connor, Reynolds (Storey, 64’), Considine; McLean, Shinnie; Burns (McGinn, 64’) Maddison (Pawlett, 64’), Hayes; Rooney.

Man of the match: Greg Docherty (Hamilton)

Referee: Willie Collum

Attendance: 2315