It took Willie Collum only six minutes to get embroiled in controversy and it wasn’t difficult to sympathise with Derek McInnes as Hamilton Accies scored from the spot.
After the match the Aberdeen boss described the decision as very soft with his side missing out on the opportunity to cut Celtic’s lead down to a single point.
Now the Dons have to sit back tonight knowing that wins for Hearts and St Johnstone will allow them to leapfrog over McInnes side.
Contact seemed minimal to non existent as Alex D’Acol backed into Anthony O’Connor.
Collum had a perfect view of the incident and didn’t hesitate to point to the penalty spot to the dismay of O’Connor and his team-mates. Adding insult to injury D’Acol picked himself up and put the ball in the net for what turned out to be the only goal of the game.
Aberdeen had a couple of penalty claims of their own in the second half but Collum thought otherwise as the visitors drew a blank in front of goal.
“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. And if that’s a penalty, then when Kenny McLean gets hauled to the ground near the penalty spot that was even more of a penalty.
“Sometimes they go for you, but the referee sees it differently. We move on though, referees can make mistakes but the game is done now.”