JAMES MORGAN

He could not have known it at the time but Craig Levein's petulant dig at Hamilton Academical's tactics against his Dundee United side last Saturday was just the first observation in a week which would end with the very fibre of the domestic game being subjected to scrutiny from all angles.

Levein's criticism, chiefly that Hamilton had used every means possible to beat United at Tannadice, deserved greater analysis in the context of what it actually said about the state of football in Scotland. It did not come, though, until Celtic departed Europe in midweek.

The theme was expanded on by Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, in the wake of Celtic's defeat to Aalborg BK. Smith claimed that Scottish football was neither good enough nor technical enough to expect progress in Europe to be anything other than cyclical. The subtext was that there just aren't enough quality players to expect consistency on the continent. So why should Levein or anyone else expect it to be different for Hamilton in the domestic arena?

"We have changed our style slightly. We're playing 3-4-3 . . . or 3-6-1. Whatever you want to call it," was Reid's wry observation in the wake of this victory, his side's first in 10 games. "It is so important to get a win. It gets us off the bottom. We're happy as a club. It was a wee bit scrappy but we have played well and not won games and you start to worry about that."

And therein lies the rub: no club is ever going to accept relegation gracefully just to please the aesthetes.

It is why Scotland under Smith, and latterly Alex McLeish, almost qualified for Euro 2008. It is why Rangers almost won the UEFA Cup last season and it is also why Levein himself used similar methods during a previous incarnation in Scottish football as the manager of Hearts. Crucially, it is why Reid will use whatever methods he must to preserve Hamilton's status in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League and should not have to apologise for doing so, either.

Upon his arrival at Scottish football's top table, Reid declared that he would try to play entertaining football but the limits of his ambition lie solely with his players' capabilities. Put simply Hamilton try to play football.

On Saturday, there were the usual assortment of misplaced passes, poor touches and niggly fouls that one would see at any SPL ground in the country - and yes, that includes the Old Firm - but there were also two teams trying to play the game the right way.

Tellingly, a foreigner, Mehdi Taouil was the most technically proficient performer on show. Yet, the Kilmarnock midfielder found himself on the losing side. Kilmarnock had five or six excellent chances to score, Hamilton had one - yet it was they who clung on for the three points after Richard Offiong had nosed them in front with an angled drive in the 52nd minute for his third goal in three games.

What cannot be understated is that Hamilton were coming off the back of that 10-game winless stretch. It was a statistic that hung heavy on the shoulders of those players in hooped jerseys. There was a desperation to their play - which rippled through the home support - as Kilmarnock committed more and more players forward and gradually seized control of midfield. But the closest they came to breaking Hamilton's resistance was when Simon Ford worked himself an opening inside the hosts penalty area and lashed the ball goalwards, only for Tomas Cerny to produce a fine, instinctive save.

Jim Jefferies reflected on the anomaly which saw his side dictate the game but come out on the losing side. "I don't think we have dominated a game away from home as much and not got anything from it. The goalie's just got to spread his legs and fortunately for him it cannoned off him. He didn't know an awful lot about it."

However, it was Cerny who took most of the plaudits afterwards and the Czech goalkeeper offered a realistic assessment of his side's hopes when Hamilton travel to Ibrox next weekend to face Rangers. "Maybe this save will be forgotten next week," he said. We are going there with nothing to lose and maybe, if we are very lucky, we can take something from the game."