HAMILTON midfielder Darian MacKinnon is targeting four points from the club's next two games as to clear the air before 2017 begins. With the Accies are separated only by goal difference from Inverness Caledonian Thistle at the foot of the Ladbrokes Premiership, there were jeers aimed in the direction of manager Martin Canning in the wake of the 3-0 defeat to a ten-man Celtic side on Christmas Eve. After tonight's visit to take on Aberdeen at Pittodrie - the Accies tend to be one of their bogey teams - comes the small matter of a Lanarkshire derby on Hogmanay and a couple of positive results would make a huge difference to the mood at the club ahead of the winter break.
"It’s getting frustrating," said MacKinnon. "We played okay against Celtic and we have been doing okay but we’ve just not been clinical enough. We need to pick up points – we really need to get a draw up there and a win against Motherwell. That would change the mood completely. What happened with Partick shows you what one win can do. Hopefully we can go up to Aberdeen and nick a point or three to take into the Motherwell game. It will be really tough up there as they’ll feel they owe us one after the result here. But you just need to go up there and play."
MacKinnon walked off the SuperSeal stadium on Christmas Eve with words of praise from Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers and repaid the compliment about a Celtic team who he feels have a clear edge on Rangers, ahead of the Hogmanay Old Firm match at Ibrox. Hamilton have played both Glasgow rivals in back-to-back weeks.
"He just said that I did well and worked hard," said MacKinnon. "I gave him a wee message back although I’m not going to say what that is! No, it was nice of him. He’s a good guy and a top coach as well. I wouldn’t say Celtic are miles ahead [of Rangers] but they are really good. I don’t think they played that well against us on Christmas Eve but when they are on fire you can’t get the ball off them."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here