Mensing: It's time to ditch fancy football and get stuck in

Dec 1 2011 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

SIMON Mensing has warned his Accies team-mates to get stuck in if they want to save their First Division campaign.

A disappointing 3-2 defeat at Raith Rovers on Saturday plunged Hamilton down into sixth place in the table, and Mensing knows that big improvements have to be made.

Third-placed Dundee visit New Douglas Park on Saturday, hot on the heels of a good 4-2 win over Falkirk, and Mensing knows Accies need to raise their game.

He said “It’s important every week to get a win. If we don’t realise that it’s a battle every week then I don’t think we ever will.

“The time for tippy-tappy football and playing it nice from the back is gone – we need to make sure we roll our sleeves up, win our battles and maybe as the game opens up then we can play some decent football.”

Mensing feels the performance at Kirkcaldy was miles better than the drab 1-0 defeat at Livingston a fortnight ago, and was disappointed not to take something from the game.

He said: “To concede three goals was very frustrating.

“We had a bit of a slow start, which the gaffer let us know about, but I think after about 10 minutes we got going, looked like the team on the ascendency, and looked very comfortable.

“Bar maybe 10 minutes at the start of the second half I thought we were the team on the ascendency, and looked like we were the more positive team going forward.

“We scored two goals but for the amount of chances we had we should have scored a few more and I don’t think David Hutton has had too many shots to save.

“But we conceded three goals so from a defensive point of view that’s annoying.

“We’ve got to improve on attacking and defending. If you keep clean sheets you have a chance to win games.

“I know we lost 3-2 but the performance as a team was ten-fold better than it was against Livingston, so that is certainly a positive that we need to take out of the game.

“But as a team we’ve got to defend a lot better – it’s back to the drawing board and we will be working hard to rectify our position.

“Hopefully we can get a good start to the game, keep the tempo high and, fingers crossed, we take something from the Dundee game.”