Canning wants Hamilton to start taking points off St Johnstone

Martin Canning wants Hamilton to start taking their fair share of the points against St Johnstone when they travel to McDiarmid Park on Saturday.

The Accies boss pointed out that his side have lost by the odd goal in their last five Ladbrokes Premiership matches against the Perth outfit, most recently a 2-1 defeat in Lanarkshire in September.

Canning wants to alter that record in a bid to get away from the bottom half of the table.

He said: “We have lost the last five games to St Johnstone by the odd goal and 15 points down to St Johnstone is not acceptable.

“We need to address that because if you look at other teams at that level like Motherwell, Dundee, St Mirren, Livingston, we need to be taking equal amounts of points.

“If it six points each and a draw then that is on balance for us but to lose 15 points and win none is unbalanced, we need to address that.”

Accies picked up their first win in five matches with a 1-0 victory against Livingston last week.

Tommy Wright’s Saints have won their last four games without conceding a goal following a 6-0 defeat by Celtic, a response which leaves Canning envious.

The former Hamilton defender said: “People talk about us having the knack of winning a game here and there to keep yourself just above it.

“It was a big result for us on Saturday. The same as a lot of games, there wasn’t much in it.

“St Johnstone have a knack of being able to win three or four on the bounce.

@They never seem to get dragged into anything, they always seem to be pushing into the top six and that is great credit to Tommy and his staff, they do a great job.

“That’s what we have got to try to do, get to the stage where we are able to put together not just one good result, but two, three or four in a row and give ourselves a chance of climbing up the table.

“We know every year it’s going to be hard work, there is going to be ups and downs and we need to manage the downs to make sure we can produce results when we need them.”