Canning rues Accies errors

Hamilton boss Martin Canning insists more “crazy mistakes” led to their 3-0 home defeat to Hearts in the Ladbrokes Premiership.

There was little between the teams until the 66th minute, when Jambos attacker Steven Naismith capitalised on an Alex Gogic blunder to set up Ross Callachan for the opener, with further goals from substitutes David Milinkovic and Dario Zanatta extending the Jambos’ unbeaten run to 11 games.

“I thought were the better team up until an hour,” said Canning, whose side lost 2-0 to Lanarkshire rivals Motherwell in the William Hill Scottish Cup at the weekend.

“But it’s the same old same old just now. Crazy mistakes, crazy mistakes.

“It is almost hard to believe that you can make four mistakes as we have made in the last two games. It is baffling but we need to make sure we get our head down and work through it.

“For an hour I thought we were going to win the game, I wasn’t even thinking about taking a point, but individual mistakes are costing us dear.

“What do I do to address that? Take the guys out the team and let them recover, but that’s not a luxury we have right now because we have injuries.”

Before the match Hamilton confirmed they had agreed a deal for midfielder Greg Docherty to join Rangers.

Canning said: “Greg Docherty’s loss is a blow. He’s been productive player for us and a big goal threat but this club’s ethos is not to stand in a player’s way.

“We’ve done our job with Greg and now the club benefits financially and the player benefits moving on.

“That’s part of our model. I thought young Lewis Ferguson, who replaced Greg, was excellent. He’s the next one off the production line.

“I think Greg will do well at Ibrox. He’s got all the attributes, he’s level-headed, very mature for his age. He’s creative, he scores goals and he has a bright future in front of him and I wish him all the best.

“He’s played a lot of games for me and he’s done really well. It’s great to see him have that opportunity and I hope he takes it.”

Hearts also extended their club-record run of eight clean sheets, with boss Craig Levein claiming the first goal was key.

He said: “I felt the first goal would be critical and I didn’t feel we were under much pressure in the match.

“I hoped we would get the first goal and then I had a feeling if that happened then we would possibly get more.

“But the first goal was critical.”

Levein confirmed interest in FC Copenhagen forward Danny Amankwaa but was reluctant to elaborate, saying: “I am not going to say anything until anything’s done.”

He also stayed quiet on speculation surrounding striker Esmael Goncalves’s reported move to Uzbekistani side Pakhtakor Tashkent, saying simply: “I can’t really say anything.”