Martin Canning doesn’t believe that speculation over the future of Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes will help his Hamilton side when the teams meet this weekend.
Canning hasn’t been surprised to see the Pittodrie boss linked with the vacant manager’s position at Rangers, being a huge admirer of what McInnes has achieved in the north-east.
And it is exactly that professionalism he feels will ensure the visiting players to the Superseal Stadium on Saturday will be well up for the battle, no matter the rumours surrounding their manager.
“I don’t think the speculation about Derek will help us, he will be too professional to allow that to happen,” Canning said. “His full focus will be on Aberdeen.
“He knocked back a big job in the summer to stay, so that shows you where his focus and commitment is.
“I can’t see him being sidetracked or not putting everything he has into this game. He’ll have them set up and performing the way they have been.
“I don’t think it will affect the players either. As a player, you just go and play the game and look forward to it.
“I know that the respect for Derek from the players is high, so there won’t be any players going out and not doing what he has asked of them.”
Read more: McInnes voices his concern over increasing rush to sack head coaches when going gets tough
For all of McInnes’s success at Aberdeen, his record at Hamilton is as patchy as the artificial pitch at Accies’ stadium.
Although they triumphed there in the Betfred Cup earlier wo 1-0 defeats in South Lanarkshire last season highlighted the problems the Dons have had at the venue, and Canning believes they won’t relish the task of going there again.
“The season before last we had a draw here and then last season we beat them 1-0 twice, so history would tell you they don’t enjoy coming here,” he said.
“But I think that Aberdeen are too good a team and too professional to let that affect them.
“Their mentality will be the opposite, they’ll want to come here and put one over on us to get their own back, so we’ve got to be guarded against that while taking the belief that we know we can get points against them at home.
“We carried a good bit of fortune in both the games last year. In one of them, they had something like 27 corners, a ridiculous stat, and we managed to dig deep and defend properly to get a clean sheet.
“You know against the top teams they are going to have their moments and their opportunities in the game, so you need your big players to play well and you need things to fall in your favour.”
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