Hamilton’s Alex Neil wary of second derby in a week

Hamilton player/manager Alex Neil in action against Motherwell. Picture: SNS

Accies beat their Lanarkshire rivals Motherwell 6-5 on penalties following a goalless Scottish League Cup encounter at New Douglas Park on Wednesday night.

The two sides meet again on Scottish Premiership duty at Fir Park on Saturday but the midfielder is not entirely enthralled by the prospect.

“I am not a big fan of playing a team so close to the first game against them,” he said.

“I am hoping the second one isn’t a tousy game. Nobody wants to give anything away so it can be a stalemate.

“I hope for the fans’ sake that is not the case. You want an end-to-end match.

“We will give it our best shot to try to win the match.

“Motherwell will do the same and they will be looking to correct what happened the other night.

“But if we can beat them again, it will be great for the fans.”

Promoted Accies are the team of the season so far in Scotland having gone unbeaten in eight games since losing at home to Inverness on the opening day of the campaign and lie third in the table, two points off leaders Dundee United.

Neil insists his players will not “get carried away” while there is improvements to be made.

He said: “It is a case of keeping the momentum going, keep playing well and keep picking up points.

“I’m trying to instil in them that they’ve done well so far but it’s only a good start, you have to maintain your form.

“Performances levels are really important thing for us.

“The disappointing thing for us is we haven’t scored in the last two games which is not like us considering the amount of goals we scored at the start of the season.

“We will be looking to put that right and trying to keep another clean sheet.

“Our performances have been good, we have got into good areas but I think the final ball has let us down a little bit.

“We have analysed it on video and we are all in agreement.

“With the quality that we have in the squad we should probably have put some of them away.”