ZIGGY Gordon says that Hamilton can’t rely on already-relegated Dundee to take care of business for them, urging his Accies teammates to make the most of having their Premiership destiny in their own hands by beating St Johnstone on Saturday.
A 2-0 win for St Mirren over Hamilton on Monday night has narrowed the gap between the sides to a single point, setting up a potentially dramatic last day of the season as Oran Kearney’s men try to leapfrog Brian Rice’s side and get themselves out of the relegation play-off spot.
The Saints will travel to Dens Park looking to heap the pressure on Accies by getting the three points, and Gordon says that his teammates need to ensure that they render any victory for the Buddies meaningless by seeing off the challenge of Tommy Wright’s visitors to Lanarkshire.
“It is in our hands,” Gordon said. “They go away to Dundee. We don’t know what kind of Dundee will turn up. Let’s be honest it is the last day of the season and they are already relegated but it doesn’t matter what Dundee turn up, what St Johnstone turn up, what St Mirren turn up – it only matters what we do.
“We know that on our day and at home that we would fancy ourselves against anyone. We need to go and win the game, end of story. We need to go out against a good St Johnstone team and win the game. “So, there are no nerves. When you need to win the game then you know what you need to do. We need a result. We do that then next week we can go on holiday and go and enjoy ourselves.”
As well as enjoying his holidays, Gordon may well be tying up a move elsewhere in the summer too. There is interest in him from Dinamo Bucharest, as well as Polish side Raków Częstochowa, but the defender is putting that to one side in order to focus on the immediate task at hand.
“I don’t think it is fair on the gaffer or the fans or on the players who work so hard for myself to take any attention from this weekend,” he said.
“I hope my future is secured sooner rather than later but I am not the priority right now.
“I have got pride. I have been at this club since I was 10 years old and I don’t want relegation on my CV.
“The boys don’t deserve it. The gaffer doesn’t deserve it, we don’t deserve it. We know what we need to do. It is clear as day - we need to show up, we need to give 100% effort, look for a wee bit of luck and take out chances when we get them and defend with our lives. Simple.”
St Mirren’s Paul McGinn was delighted meanwhile to keep that pressure on Hamilton, but he doesn’t expect his former teammates at Dundee to be doing him any favours.
The full-back knows that interim manager James McPake will have the Dens Park players right up for the game as they look to bow out of the Premiership on a high, but he is determined to ensure Hamilton have to do their part.
“It was up to us to put the pressure on Hamilton and make it so that that have to win that last game,” said McGinn.
“We’ve done it once and we need to try and do it again up at Dundee. If we do that and they get the win then fair play to them.
“The plan is just to win basically. I used to play with Jaza (James McPake) so I know he will get a reaction out of Dundee. We know it will be a tough game and that they got a good result last week.
“They’ll clearly not be just packing up for the summer. We just concentrate on that and if we do we know St Johnstone are a good team who are also hard to beat. We’ll just try and make it as difficult for Hamilton as possible.
“I’m sure Hamilton won’t be excited about it. They’d rather just see it out and if you offered them staying up by default I think they’d take it.
“They definitely won’t enjoy playing in it. That’s what our job is to do.”
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