Accies aim to get back on winning track against Jags

Nov 9 2007

HAMILTON captain Alex Neil this week warned his side can’t afford many more slip-ups if they want to win the First Division.

Disappointed Neil was speaking after Saturday’s shock 2-1 defeat at Queen of the South, a game which his side dominated for large spells.

But the midfielder said they need to make sure of the points when they’re on top.

Neil, right, said: “I thought in the first half we played particularly well and could have been 2-0 or 3-0 ahead. We should have put the game to bed in the first half, but we didn’t.

“In the second half they came out, tightened things up in the middle of the park and made it harder for us to play, so that resulted in us playing long balls.

“With the size of them at the back they won most of them and we struggled a lot in the second half.

“The manner of the goals we lost was disappointing as well.

“The first goal was a ricochet off one of our boys, and the second one hit the post, hit our goalkeeper on the back, and went in.

“It was one of those times that when the second goal went in we thought ‘maybe it’s not going to be our day’.

“We fought until the end but to be fair to Queen of the South they got the win.”

Neil is now turning his attention to Saturday’s visit by Partick Thistle, and described it as the first in a long line of must-win games.

He explained: “When you’re at the top of the league everybody wants to beat you, and obviously we need to try and beat everybody, so every game we play is important.

“There is not one game that isn’t important to us.

“It was a disappointment not to win on Saturday, so we’ll be looking to make amends for that against Partick Thistle on Saturday.

“Saturday’s game is out of the way, we’re disappointed, and we’ll look at where we went wrong before preparing for Thistle, looking to get another three points.”

That Palmerston Park defeat, allied to Dundee’s last-gasp win over St Johnstone, cut Hamilton’s lead at the top of the First Division to three points, but Neil insists Accies aren’t concerning themselves with that at this stage.

He said: “We don’t really concern ourselves with Dundee or anybody else in the league — we just want to try and win all of our games.”