Louis Longridge says that Hamilton don’t fear Rangers, and he believes they can take advantage of the extra pressure on them following their Old Firm defeat to pile the misery on Pedro Caixinha.
The winger says that all the pressure going into the game is on the shoulders of the players in light blue, and he hopes that some of their new recruits struggle with the culture shock of their surroundings when they visit the smallest club in the division.
And if Accies are at the top of their pressing game, he reckons they can make life more than uncomfortable for the Ibrox side on their visit to Lanarkshire.
“The negative result against Celtic means that their manager will want them to bounce back and there’s more pressure on them to come here and get the result against Accies - a supposed wee club,” Longridge said. “I think there’s added pressure on them.
“We hope they have a culture shock and they are not happy putting up with what could be a cold Friday night.
“If they are on the ball and everything clicks they will make it hard, but by the same token, if we put in the work and stick to the basics then we can get a positive result. We won’t focus on Rangers - we’ll stick to what we do and hope we can get the result.
“The manager drills it into us that we have to make it hard for opponents. I don’t think for a second that they will come here thinking it’s easy and we have to make sure it’s difficult.
“We’ve shown against Hibs we could compete and get in their faces and we got the win.
“We don’t fear them. We believe we can get a positive result against them. We don’t fear Rangers coming here.”
Longridge knows that most of the focus in the build-up to this week’s Friday night football will centre on the visitors and the importance of a win to Rangers, but Hamilton have their own motivations to get the three points.
Martin Canning’s men have lost their last two matches against Hearts and St Johnstone, but came away from both feeling they should have got more.
And Longridge doesn’t want another hard luck story against Rangers, stressing that points are the only currency worth anything in this division.
“It’s not just Rangers - we’re trying to get points on the board so we’re not in the position we were in last season,” he said.
“We don’t think about not having beaten Rangers - it’s just another three points. We don’t want to be in a position like last season when we got ahead in games, lost goals and then ended up in the play-offs.
“We look at it as another game to get maximum points.
“[The manager] was a bit disappointed after the game. I think it was just down to the fact that we were the better team for 60 minutes and for whatever reason we stopped playing.
“That allowed St Johnstone to get belief as previously we had been in control. We should have killed the game off in 60 minutes.
“When we didn’t take anything from Saturday you wonder what difference a point or three points would make come the end of the season.
“We know how vital that is for us and we look to get a positive result against Rangers on Friday.”
If Hamilton are to upset Rangers, they will have to do it without the suspended Darian MacKinnon.
“He’s a huge player for us,” said Longridge. “We might miss his presence in midfield. Greg Docherty is box to box and Ali Crawford is outstanding, but not the most aggressive.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here