Accies on road to redemption
FOR Hamilton, the road and miles to Dundee this weekend could represent the best chance yet to remedy a worrying and persistent travel sickness.
Accies are the only Premiership side still to record a victory away from home this season and have scored the fewest goals on the road with just ten away strikes.
But, mercifully, they face fragile opponents when they pitch up at Dens Park on Saturday afternoon.
Paul Hartley’s men look a team in freefall at the worst possible time. They have slumped to six defeats in a row, and the last time they appeared at home they shipped seven without reply to Aberdeen.
While Hamilton manager Martin Canning will look to ramp up the pressure on Dundee from kick-off, he is not taking anything for granted when his team heads up the A9 for Tayside.
Not when Dundee ended a run of six straight losses earlier this season with a return to winning ways at New Douglas Park on October 29.
‘I spoke to the boys in training this week and told them it would be a great time to get an away win,’ said Canning. ‘We shouldn’t be in the position where we haven’t won a game away from home all season.
‘I do think we’ve played reasonably well on the road at times, picking up a lot of draws.
‘But we should definitely have won a game by now. There are only six games left and we need to pick up points — home and away.
‘If you can, you want to pile the pressure on the home team, so the plan will be to start on the front foot.
‘But I remember Dundee were under pressure the last time they came to play us here.
‘They’d lost a run of games and were bottom of the league by five or six points. Yet they beat us 1-0 and they proceeded to go on a run, winning three in a row.
‘That’s how tight this league can be. You can’t look at a team and think just because they have been on a poor run or are seemingly struggling that it’s a great chance to get a win.
‘It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be tight. But if we do our jobs and work hard then for sure we can win this game.’
With a victory and two draws in their last three games, Hamilton head for Dens Park with the psychological advantage of having moved four points off the bottom and out of the relegation play-off place on goal difference.
A win at Dundee, coupled with a loss for Inverness at Motherwell on Saturday, would represent a healthy seven-point cushion from bottom place before the five post-split fixtures begin.
‘I’m not even looking at the Motherwell v Inverness game,’ countered Canning. ‘You can’t allow your mind to be distracted by what-ifs and maybes.
‘That way you can forget to do your own job. The mentality has to be fully focused on what you do, regardless of what happens elsewhere. We’ve got to make sure we win. But it’s definitely a huge boost that we have moved away from the bottom two. We’ve got to look at the teams above us now and want to catch them.
‘That’s definitely the mindset. We are not looking down and only thinking about avoiding relegation.
‘We are going to be positive, we are going to attack games and we are going to give it our best shot.’
Canning refutes the notion that a traditionally bigger club like Dundee is under more pressure than an outfit with a more modest support base such as Hamilton.
Look across the bottom six, he argues, and the pressure is ever-present, regardless of the size of the club involved in trying to battle the drop.
‘I don’t think there is more pressure on the so-called bigger clubs,’ he said. ‘Regardless of your budget or the size of the club, the pressure I put on us is to go and do our jobs and I set the standard as high as possible.
‘Saturday is huge, yes, but I will be saying that about the next game. Then the next game.
‘Every game is going to become the biggest game of the season.
‘Every game at this stage is huge. We’ve just got to make sure we’re the team heading in the right direction.
‘Everyone is under massive pressure. There are quite a few teams fighting to stay up.
‘I said three or four months ago that the only team that manages to stay safe will be the team that finishes sixth. Partick Thistle have done that but the rest will be involved right down to the wire.’
Canning will find out today whether he has Giannis Skondras available to face Dundee. Accies have appealed the red card shown to the Greek full-back for a lunge on Ryan Dow as the County winger counter-attacked at pace.
Referee Steven McLean viewed the challenge as a straight red but even County boss Jim McIntyre agreed with Canning that the 27-year-old was harshly dealt with by the referee.
‘He slipped while trying to make an honest attempt to get the ball,’ said Canning.
‘He’s on the ground and their player’s nicked the ball over him. It all looked a bit exaggerated because of the speed of their player. But there was absolutely no intent to endanger the player.
‘So we’re hopeful of it being overturned. Ninety eight per cent of the people I’ve spoken to thought it was a red card at the time — but when they watched it back they thought differently.
‘I don’t think it was the right decision. Hopefully others will see that at Hampden on Thursday.’
“It’s huge boost to move out the bottom two”