Hamilton manager Martin Canning is hoping to see the angry side of his former boss Mixu Paatelainen on Saturday.

Canning played under the new Dundee United manager at Hibs, and says that he enjoyed working with the Finnish coach.

He is hoping though that his Hamilton side can cause Paatelainen’s angry side to surface as they travel to Tannadice looking to pile more misery on the Premiership’s bottom club.

“I worked with Mixu at Hibs and he’s a lovely guy,” Canning said.

“I really liked him, I thought his methods were good and I liked what he was doing there.

“Obviously for me I wanted to play every week. I’d been out for a year with an injury and I wanted to play, so I had a couple of frank meetings with him let’s say to try to persuade him I should be playing!

“From there I came here, but I really got on with Mixu at Hibs and he’s a good guy.

“To be fair, he can lose his temper but so can everybody, that’s part of football. He’s pretty controlled about it.

“Whether you’re a player or a manager you can lose the plot sometimes, and I’m sure when he does he uses it in the right way.

“He’s definitely got that presence though and he definitely has that in him. We saw that once or twice at Hibs so I know he’s got that side to him, but he knows his stuff and he’s a real football guy.

“I think he’ll bring determination and grit to United, you could see his passion on Saturday, so for us it will be a difficult game and we’ll have to go there and match them for effort and hope that our quality players can be firing and get the goals to get us the win.”

Whilst Canning acknowledges that he has picked up things from all of the managers he played under, he revealed that he never consulted them before taking up his first managerial position.

“I never spoke to anybody believe it or not, I just got on with it,” he said.

“Mixu’s somebody that I would pick up the phone to now and have a chat with because he’s a nice guy and someone I get on well with.

“It will be good to see him on Saturday, and hopefully we can win so that it will be even better to see him!”

Canning knows that if Hamilton can strike early at Tannadice it could have a massive bearing on the outcome of the match given United’s low confidence levels.

He says though that they try to impose themselves on their opponents from the first whistle no matter the opposition.

“We always try to start games on the front-foot and of course this will be no different,” he said.

“You know what it’s like when you’re on a difficult run, if a team gets on top of you straight away then it can be hard.

“We’ll approach it the same way as we always do and go up there to win the game.

“I went to watch United on Saturday and I thought they were probably the better team in the first-half, but then St Johnstone got two quick goals right before half-time which kind of killed it.

“There wasn’t much in it in the second-half, although St Johnstone missed the penalty as well.

“But they looked decent and we’ll have to be at our best on Saturday to win the game.”