Secures ‘natural athlete’ Mackinnon on new deal
is one of those players who doesn’t really play poorly but I think he has been excelling in the last few weeks and it is something that we have been looking to do – tie him down for a bit longer.
“His attitude is great. I think he is 31 now but he is as fit as they come. He is a natural athlete.
“He gets about, he looks after himself off the pitch as well.
“It is great for the club that we have managed to tie him down again.”
Hamilton’s player/manager also revealed that the club have been in talks with Lennard Sowah to extend his deal beyond January. “Hopefully that will get sorted in the next day or two,” Canning said.
The manager also confirmed that squad member Richard Roy would be moving on from the club when his contract expires at the end of this month.
Canning will take the positives from the 1-1 draw with the Light Blues at Ibrox on the opening day of the league season, as well as encouragement from their most recent game – a battling, tenacious performance in which they lost only 1-0 to runaway leaders Celtic at Parkhead on Tuesday night. He said: “We learned on Tuesday that the boys are capable of raising their game and concentrating for 90 minutes at a difficult venue. Friday night is going to be similar.
“Albeit it is a home game, it is still a huge club coming here and we have to make sure we are competing and concentrating from minute one and put in the energy we are doing and hopefully we can take something from the game.
“We set out intentionally trying to win the game and every game is difficult. We need to make sure we approach it properly.” Mark Mcghee hopes the Pittodrie floodlight failure has a silver lining for Motherwell.
Mcghee went into Tuesday’s game at Aberdeen with injury concerns over three players and he feels the unexpected rest will be beneficial ahead of the Ladbrokes Premiership trip to face St Johnstone.
The Well boss, who will serve the second match of his touchline ban at Mcdiarmid Park, said: “We got over it quickly. What can you do?
“I know they had plans next week to renew the wiring, so they just got caught out a wee bit. It can happen to anyone.
“Actually, we went into that game with Scott Mcdonald, Chris Cadden and big Mick (Stephen Mcmanus) struggling.
“We gave Cadden a fitness test before we left and he said he felt all right but we were a bit nervous about that. Scotty came back in the dressing room and said he was struggling. 0 Mark Mcghee is glad players have had recovery time.
“So maybe that has worked for us. They might have struggled late in the game or even sooner than that.
“So hopefully they have a couple of days to recover and be fit for the St Johnstone game.
“We have lost narrowly to them most of the time recently but we have never really played well against them, so clearly we are going to have to play better than we have played in other games because they are the type of team that you have to break down.
“You have got to play better than them.”