NOT even a week has past since his appointment but already Martin Canning appears anxious to be given more time as player-manager at Hamilton Academical.

This is not as a result of the form endured recently by his side, with Inverness Caledonian Thistle inflicting a fourth consecutive defeat on Canning's team. It was instead only in evidence when he arrived in New Douglas Park's media room a little after five on Saturday evening, the demands of speaking first on television, on radio, to the board, to a deflated squad, meaning that the 33-year-old took a seat inside the main stand wearing his full kit. His shin pads were still stuffed into his socks.

Canning has still to reconcile his image as an experienced centre-half with the new guise of a manager, featuring in all but one match since taking responsibility for the first team. That was in the heavy defeat by Partick Thistle last week, when he served a suspension. He was preferred as the club wanted a manager associated with the club - outsiders such as Gennaro Gattuso were resisted - and Canning has recruited assistants with a similar aspect; former Hamilton team-mates Chris Swailes and Guillaume Beuzelin will start work in earnest this week.

They have returned to a find a team which had scaled the SPFL Premiership table during the first half of the campaign only to now become unsure of its footing. The heights of breaking into the top six and upsetting Celtic in Glasgow have been replaced by concerns over what is happening further down the table. "That's four games now that we've not been able to pick up any points and Dundee won again, didn't they?" said forward Dougie Imrie of the seventh-place side, who can move within four points of Hamilton when the clubs meet on Saturday.

The numbers produced by recent results count against Hamilton and present an immediate test of Canning's managerial acuity; his side have lost four games and have failed to score a goal in the last three, conceding nine. On Saturday, the Lanarkshire team lost in front of over 5000 supporters as the club charged just 10 pence at the gate in honour of the decade of service given by previous manager Alex Neil and assistant Frankie McAvoy, who stepped down officially after the game.

He had remained in situ to help after Neil decamped to Norwich and Canning will hope that his departure and the introduction in training of different faces with new voices will offer closure. The Hamilton squad has appeared stricken since Neil left for the Sky Bet Championship and the likes of Ali Crawford and leading scorer Tony Andreu were both particularly ineffective against Inverness. Indeed Hamilton posed a greater threat to the wellbeing of a steward than to Inverness during the first half, when a clearance landed inches from where he happened to be standing

"It's very important for the gaffer to get that monkey off his back, to get that first win," said Imrie. "That's four defeats but we've not played badly since he's taken over and we've got plenty of character in this team. We've just got to keep going."

A similar sentiment had earlier been endorsed by Danny Williams, the Inverness winger, albeit more favourably. A win in Lanarkshire was a fifth in succession in the league for the Highland side and offered security to their hopes of qualifying for a shot at Europe next season, with only three points separating Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee United. Such proximity has allowed Aberdeen a closer look at Inverness captain Graeme Shinnie and the full-back - who performed intelligently in central midfield on Saturday - has signed a pre-contract agreement with the intention of moving to Pittodrie in the summer.

The three clubs share similar ambitions this season but Inverness are often subject to unequal attention, their rivals each still seeming a better fit for contention for the Europa League despite the compelling form shown by Inverness. "I don't know why that is. We're not that fussed," said Williams, whose have lost just three times in their last 12 matches.

"It's a great incentive for us, a club like Inverness pushing for Europe - it's just brilliant. We are flying under the radar but that suits us, we are happy with that. We just want to keep playing our football, keep passing, keep scoring goals and keep performing well."

That is enough for Inverness to be getting on with, without losing time on anything else.