Friday 22 January 2016 15:54, UK
Hamilton manager Martin Canning says survival in the Scottish Premiership is the main target for his side this season.
Accies are third from bottom of the table - above Kilmarnock only on goal difference - after their 8-1 drubbing at Celtic Park in midweek.
But Canning is convinced his players will have learned from the defeat and is looking for an immediate reaction, starting with Sunday's home game against Hearts, live on Sky Sports.
"I have watched the game back, talked it through with the players and we have dealt with it," said Canning, who is still registered as a player. "There are are always things you can learn or take from it, but the most important thing is that we bounce back on Sunday.
"Obviously we have to improve and that starts now. We need to go again on Sunday, work hard and try to get those three points."
Canning admitted after the midweek game, which saw Celtic have a shot at Michael McGovern's goal every three minutes, that he was contemplating his future with the Lanarkshire club.
However, he was immediately backed by Accies chairman Les Gray and is now looking to repay the faith shown in him by leading the side to safety this season.
"Obviously from my point of view that's great the club are still backing me," he said. "But that's something they've always said to me. I think the fact they were getting phone calls and asked about it continuously they felt the best thing to do was put out a statement and make it quite clear where they stood.
"And the ethos of the club has been to stand by its own guys if you like and try and continue to get the hard work in and that's something we'll always continue to do, myself included. I'm going to try and work as hard as I can to turn things round.
"I think that's just the way the club do their business. From my point of view I'm not naïve enough to sit here and think that I'm completely safe in my job. Yes the club are backing me but I've got to win games. It's a results business."
With Dundee United detached at the foot of the table, Canning has set his sights on avoiding the play-off spots at the end of the season with Hibernian, Rangers and Falkirk as possible opponents from Championship.
"Success is staying in the Premiership, that's successful to us," added the former Ross County and Gretna centre half. "We are the smallest club, we have the smallest budget in the biggest league.
"I think we have over-achieved so much in the last two and a half years that people sometimes think that we should be a top six team and we should be pushing for Europe. But realistically for us, yes we would love to be there and we'll always aim as high as we can, but I've said it all season our biggest aim is to stay in the Premiership. And if we can do that we've achieved success for us."
Accies have not won since the end of November, a miserable run which included a 4-1 Scottish Cup defeat at Annan, but winger Dougie Imrie is doing his bit to raise spirits at New Douglas Park.
"Losing 8-1 at Celtic Park is obviously a hard thing to take," said the 32-year-old, who treated his team-mates to a rare light-hearted moment with a novel shave the morning after the game.
"As you can see by my beard this morning I've tried to do that a little bit to get the boys up," he said. "It's been difficult the last few weeks, we know we're not playing well but we just need to stick together. We've got a of young kids here and a lot of them are hurting. I just wanted to have a little bit of a laugh and joke this morning to try and lift the spirits.
"We've got another tough game on Sunday against Hearts. We've beat them here already this season so it will be a really tough game but one we are looking forward to.
"They won 6-0 against Motherwell so we know exactly what we are up against. They are strong, they are physical and they have really good players so we need to be up for the game, match them one hundred percent and give our all."
