Thumbs down

Mickel Miller says belief can fire Hamilton Accies up the Premiership table.

The winger says that, and a half-time rollicking, was the catalyst behind Hamilton dumping Hearts in their basement battle at New Douglas Park on Saturday.

Miller gift-wrapped the pre-festive win with a goal and an assist, which took Accies off the foot of the table for Christmas.

The Londoner says Hamilton need to show that same belief at home to St Johnstone tonight (Thursday) as they look to drag their way further from the relegation drop-zone.

After a fairly inauspicious first half, Miller and Hamilton took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half.

Scott Martin and George Oakley linked well to send Miller through in the box and he blasted a shot into the top left corner to put Accies ahead in 64 minutes.

Eleven minutes later his driven cross from the left picked out Will Collar at the back post and he smashed home the second, despite the attempts of Joel Pereira to save.

Hearts pulled a goal back in 82 minutes when sub Ollie Bozanic headed in a Glenn Whelan corner, and Jake Mulraney had a late shot saved by Luke Southwood at point-blank range.

Accies held on for a brilliant win, their first in 12 attempts, and Miller says they must keep that going against St Johnstone today and at Motherwell on Sunday.

“We got a b ****** ing from the gaffer at half-time, which definitely saw an impact from the boys,” said Miller.

“Time and time again we’ve just got to believe in ourselves, because in that second-half we believed, we started playing more, you could see it, and we got the result. If we continue like we did in the second half I reckon we won’t even struggle. We’ve got to believe in ourselves more.

“That was a massive psychological boost for us.

“The last couple of weeks has been tough for us, it’s good to get off the bottom of the league, but the next game is important.

“We’ve got to take that into the next game, and if we do we’re laughing.”

Miller has scored three goals this season but they have all been crackers, and that’s something team-mates regularly tell him.

He said: “I try to score good goals, I just need to try and make it more consistent now.

“I was just thinking ‘shoot’, because I had the chance to. All the boys keep saying to me that when I get a chance to shoot I should take it, because I’ve got a good shot, so I just had a go, and scored.

“I didn’t see Will’s goal, to be fair, because I was off the pitch! I just heard the noise from the crowd so it was a good feeling.”

It could have been a different story; while Oakley sent a diving header past the post from an Aaron Mcgowan cross, Hearts’ Stevie Naismith volleyed past and Craig Halkett sent a header off the bar in the first half.

Miller says they need to take that into the next two games and he said: “I feel that we owe them both something so we’ll see what we can do.”