Canning reinforces strength of Hamilton squad but insists they must pick up more points
Martin Canning has claimed the current crop of Hamilton players are the best the club has had in his nine years there.
Accies are currently sitting ninth in the Ladbrokes Premiership having seen a run of six games unbeaten ended by St Johnstone on Saturday.
Despite often being tipped for relegation at the start of the season, Accies are once again proving people wrong, but their boss has not been surprised by their relative success so far this season after putting together a competitive group of players.
He said: “It’s the strongest squad we’ve had at Hamilton Accies since I’ve been here.
“When you look at the bench on Saturday, there are five or six guys sitting there who are all arguably ready to play and should be playing. It’s a good squad, and you have Botti Biabi and Ali Crawford that aren’t even in the squad (on Saturday).
“It’s a strong squad and we know that if we can keep everybody fit, then we can definitely have a good season.”
Canning was non-committal on whether his side can push for a place in the top six – they are currently four points off Hearts – and admitted they must start to turn their promising performances into wins.
Of their unbeaten streak, four matches finished in draws and the Superseal Stadium chief is keen to put that right.
“You can see in the performances that it’s a good team out there, a solid team and one that’s doing well,” he said. “We should have beaten Hearts and we should have beaten St Johnstone, but it’s easy to stand here and say that – you have to go and do it.
“We have to turn these performances into results, not just points because they only take you so far.”
Accies travel to Parkhead tonight on the back of Celtic’s 2-2 draw at Hibernian on Sunday, but Canning is wary of a backlash from the league leaders.
Of the draw, he said: “All that does is resharpen the focus if they think they’re starting to drop.
“It’s probably not a good thing for us but it’s one of those things that you can look at two ways; you can see it that way or as an opportunity to pick up points.”