NO ROOM FOR REGRET
Imrie urges Accies to give it all they’ve got in double-header with Dundee Utd and secure another term in the top tier
Dougie Imrie says Hamilton will do everything they can to come through their Scottish Premiership Play-off Final against Dundee United — and told his team-mates not to have any
regrets.
Hamilton travel to Tannadice to tackle United tonight (Thursday), with the return leg at the Superseal Stadium on Sunday, as they bid to retain their place in the top flight for a record fourth successive season. Imrie knows it’s not going to be easy to get past Ray Mckinnon’s side, who beat Falkirk 4-3 on aggregate to qualify, but hopes Hamilton have the quality to see it through. He said: “I wish we could have got one or two more wins over the course of the season to keep us in automatically. “We find ourselves in the position of the play-off and we’ve been here before — although I wasn’t. Hamilton have been there before with the game against Hibs, so most of the boys know what it’s all about. “Hopefully they can take what they got out of it the last time and put that towards the next two games coming up. “I hope everyone goes into it full of confidence, and has no regrets, and we get the result that we need.
“There is no advantage with the second game being at home— you’ve just got to go out and win the games. You make sure you do enough to win the tie, first and foremost, and if that’s enough it gets us through and back into the Premiership.
“It will be a tough game. Dundee United showed their desire and commitment with two late goals to win them the semi-final, so it will be difficult, but we’re going into the game now on the back of a 4-0 win over Dundee and we’re full of confidence.
“Hopefully we can take that into Thursday night, get a lead and bring it back, and play the same way we did on Saturday — hopefully it’s enough.”
Imrie took heart from Saturday’s emphatic win over Dundee, during which, from the spot, he scored his seventh goal of the season, and said: “We knew what we had to do on Saturday. We knew we had to win the game and that was it — and that sets us up nicely for the play-off now.
“We’re disappointed that we couldn’t pick up a win in any of the four games previous to that, and we maybe wouldn’t have to go through the play-off, but it is what it is, now.
“I think we have to go into this game on the back of that. We scored four fantastic goals and I thought we were excellent.
“Dundee were safe so they were probably a bit flat, but we still had to go out and perform.
“I think we did that, we moved the ball really well, and if we can do that over the two legs of the play-off I think we’ll have enough in the tank to hopefully see us over the line.”