Reid: We can still cause cup shock

Mar 5 2009 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

BILLY REID believes his Hamilton side can shock Rangers in Sunday’s Homecoming Scottish Cup quarter-final – but only if his men are at their very best.

Accies have already lost four times in clashes with Walter Smith’s side this season, including a Co-operative Insurance Cup quarter-final at Ibrox in October, with their latest result a 1-0 home defeat on Saturday.

But Reid knows the pressure will be on their hosts to reach the semi-finals and that could open up some gaps for Hamilton to exploit.

The Accies boss said: “We’ve got nothing to lose in this game because points aren’t at stake.

“Rangers are heavy favourites, and you would expect that because they turned us over on Saturday.

“While I wouldn’t say we weren’t disappointed at the result, we didn’t play as well as we can, although Rangers might have had something to do with that.

“It’s a huge game for everybody here. We’ve already been there in a quarter-final and that’s a decent achievement, although that’s what we should be doing as an SPL club.

“But for us to go there and get a result we’ve got to be at our best and hope Rangers make mistakes.

“If we do that, we’ve got to take our chances when we get them. If we do that, there is the potential that we can win.

“We’ve beaten almost everybody else in the league outside of Rangers and Celtic, so there’s no reason why not.”

Reid was able to take positives out of Saturday’s defeat but admitted his side were well beaten.

He said: “The last time we played Rangers we lost 7-1 so it’s progress for us to lose by a single goal. At times we’ve taken a battering against them this season.

“I can’t have any complaints about the score-line. Rangers deserved their win, made more chances and worked our goalkeeper more.

“But the first half was disappointing. I don’t think we matched them at all. They were worthy leaders at half-time, and that’s unusual for us because we usually get close to players and stop teams from playing.

“We made a slight alteration at half-time when Simon Mensing went to the middle of defence and Alex Neil went to the middle of the park.

“I thought there was a big improvement in the second half. We were in their faces and pinned them back for spells but we didn’t create enough and had no cutting edge. But credit to Rangers; that’s why they’ve got the best defence in the league.”

He added: “We’re disappointed to lose the game. We gave it our all and we just weren’t good enough on the day.

“There were one or two decent performances but to win a football match you need maybe seven or eight guys playing at the top of their game and we didn’t have that.

“But the effort and application in the second half was fantastic and we pushed them back for spells.”

Mark McLaughlin is still likely to be missing following a “horrendous” head injury he picked up in the win over Falkirk and Reid won’t put a time limit on the big defender’s recovery period.

“Mark’s health is more important than playing for Accies at the moment,” the manager said. “I’m not going to rush him back. I want him back ASAP, but it would be wrong to do that.”

A booking picked up in Saturday’s game has put midfielder Simon Mensing through the disciplinary points threshold and he will miss the forthcoming games against Aberdeen and St Mirren.