No excuses, please, Brendan

As a rule, I don’t like managers complaining about the pitch, the weather (Barbara is blowing in Hamilton right now), the ball or anything else prior to a game. Experience suggests if you give players an excuse to underperform, they’ll grab it with both hands.

The pitch at the Superseal (save us) Stadium Hamilton is more than adequate for a football match, let’s get on with it.

After a run of solid results Accies came off the rails in the last two games, losing narrowly to the top two: 1-0 away to Celtic then 1-2 to Newco in Hamilton. These are not the games which are important for Hamilton but losing twice by a single goal will sting. Barricades will be reinforced for Celtic tomorrow.

Brendan Rodgers has managed his squad subliminally well this month, resting players throughout but still putting a team on the field to win all, apart from the 1-1 away in the Champions League. He’ll know that anything less than 100% tomorrow brings the real risk of dropped points, so I’m far from sure he’ll be in the mood to rest anyone.

It’s been a couple of weeks since we saw images of Kieran Tierney back training. When he went through his operation we were told it would be January before we’d see him back, but he’s a fit lad, I wonder if he’ll be ready for 20 minutes on the magnificently smooth Lanarkshire surface.