It’s a fair stretch to say that Hamilton and Dundee United are building momentum, but when you have been on as barren a run as these sides have, any upturn in fortunes must feel that way.

That’s certainly the opinion of Accies midfielder Darren Lyon, who is desperate for Hamilton to follow up a draw against Hearts and a win against Kilmarnock by bursting United’s bubble on Saturday.

“You’re obviously not going to go through the whole season doing exceptionally well but I think we’re doing alright just now,” he said.

“We’re starting to get a bit of momentum behind us thanks to a massive win over Kilmarnock in our last game.

“We would probably have loved to get this Dundee United game last weekend because we were on a high but unfortunately the Scottish Cup ties got in the way.

“But we are still feeling good, we’ve been working hard towards this game and having beaten United twice already this season we are looking for the hat-trick.

“United are a good team and they have a bit of momentum behind them too having won their last couple of games, so this will be no pushover.

“It’s important to stop United’s momentum for our sakes and the teams below us. There’s Kilmarnock and Dundee United in the bottom two but there’s only two points between us and Dundee who are in sixth place, so it’s a crazy league at the minute.

“You could be dragged into the relegation battle or pushing for the top six depending on how games like this one go.

“We’ll be looking to hopefully get a win to take us away from the bottom two and take a bit of pressure off us.”

Lyon returned from a long-term injury just in time for Hamilton’s horror results against Annan and Celtic, but he says that Accies have put their poor run firmly behind them.

“I’m enjoying being back playing because there’s nothing worse than having to watch the boys training and playing while you’re stuck in the gym doing rehab,” he said.

“So it was nice to be back but the Annan game wasn’t the best place to start.

“We’ve put that to bed now, we’ve moved on from it and have a lot of hard games coming up before the split to focus on now.”