WE NEED A FORTRESS
Captain wants to get more points from home games
Hamilton must turn New Douglas Park into a stadium that teams dread to visit, says Brian Easton.
The Accies team captain is well aware of the ‘fortress’ cliché, but says winning home games is going to be the key to success.
Easton reckons Brian Rice’s side is heading in the right direction, but they can help themselves by taking more points from visiting teams – starting with Livingston on Saturday.
“I know it’s a cliché, but we need to turn our place into a fortress,” said the defender.
“That’s what you need to do, you need to make sure your stadium is a place that teams don’t want to go to, even before they come they’re thinking ‘oh no, we’re going to Hamilton’.
“I think we’re doing that, we’re heading in the right direction. There are lots of positives with what we’re doing. There are definitely things we want to work on, but as long as we’re picking up points it’s good for us.”
Easton was happy to take a point from Saturday’s 0-0 draw against St Mirren in Paisley, after striker George Oakley was controversially red-carded four minutes into the second half.
The defence soaked up a lot of Saints pressure without goalkeeper Owain Fonwilliams really having a save to make, but Easton was pleased with the point.
He said: “I think it’s probably a game that a lot of teams would have lost. If you put everything together, the way we started the first half definitely wasn’t good enough, we weren’t happy with it, and then going down to 10 men means you’ve got a really tough second half, especially with the pressure they were putting on us.
“I thought we defended really well, we were solid when we needed to be, we put bodies in front of the ball and it was an excellent point to come away with, really.
“We nearly sneaked it late on. When you go down to 10 men you’re expecting them to have a lot of pressure, but it’s about soaking up that pressure and I thought we did that really well.
“You want then to maybe do enough to nick a chance and we did that with Blair Alston in the second half – it was a good save, and that can turn a game.
“It’s natural that St Mirren were going to have more of the ball. They were trying to throw bodies forward, get crosses into the box and I thought the way we defended everything was brilliant.
“There were spells in the second half when we actually kept the ball quite well and we were passing it about. We had to soak up a lot of pressure, but it was one of those games where a point was really good.”
Gary Holt brings his Livingston side to Hamilton on Saturday, and Easton hopes Accies can step up their form, saying: “Livingston at our place is another chance, it’s a home game, we’ll get in a good week and be ready to take them on.”