Hamilton Accies Captain Neil warns Motherwell will be wounded animals

Dec 31 2009 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

HAMILTON captain Alex Neil has warned his side that Motherwell will be like a wounded animal in the wake of manager Jim Gannon’s sacking.

Gannon was given the bullet on Monday and former Scotland boss Craig Brown and assistant Archie Knox take over on an interim basis.

Their first game in charge will be Saturday’s Fir Park derby and Neil said: “Their manager has gone so we’re all a bit shocked at that – it should make for an interesting game.

“They’ll be like a wounded animal and it will get a reaction from their players who maybe haven’t been involved and who will have a point to prove.

“That would have been the case regardless of who had taken over and it will give them a boost.

“But it’s how we play that’s important.

“Last year I think we let ourselves down in one of the games at Fir Park so hopefully we can have a good day and put that right. Our form in the last four or five games has been quite good so we’ve got a chance of winning the game.”

Alex hopes to recover from an ankle knock in time for the derby, picked up in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Celtic Park.

The midfield ace reckons Accies played well, and wonders if their disallowed goal would have stood had it been at the other end.

Marco Paixao missed a shot in front of a virtually open goal, the ball bounced off the turf and struck him on the arm before falling kindly to brother Flavio, who gleefully rammed it home.

Referee Stevie O’Reilly, however, had signalled a foul for the handball before the ball hit the net.

Neil said: “If Celtic had scored it I don’t know if it would have been chalked off.

“The point is that it has to be deliberate handball and I don’t think it was. Marco has lost where the ball was, turned around and it hit him, and his brother has put it in.

“I’ve seen them given and we’re disappointed not to have got the goal, but it’s just one of those things that happens.”

Neil added: “In the first 25 minutes I don’t think we passed the ball as well as we would have liked and we kept giving Celtic possession.

“We changed our system after that and our use of the ball was better, so we played our game. But I think we could have created a few more chances.”