MARTIN CANNING has told his players they will need to adapt to the Celtic Park pitch on Saturday, but he knows that the playing surface may be the least of his worries as his side face up to the rampant Hoops.

The Accies boss is used to defending his own club’s artificial surface from criticism, but he says the state of the pitch at Parkhead is a perfect example of why plastic is the way to go.

Whether the game was on a bowling green surface or the rutted field that drew criticism from Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers at the weekend though, he still knows that it will take more than the surface to level the playing field.

“I’ve always said that when you come here to play you know what you’re going to get,” Canning said.

“It’s predictable. With some grass pitches you’re never sure how it’s going to be, particularly at this time of the season. 

“You look at Hearts as well, I know they’re ripping it up and I’m pretty sure Celtic will do something similar if they feel they’ve got to. Those clubs have the money to do it. But we like our pitch because it’s a constant. 

“We have to adapt wherever we go, if it’s a difficult pitch we’ve got to be ready for that, whether it’s a good pitch or not. It doesn’t make any difference – it’s what we do in the 90 minutes that’ll dictate what we get out of the game.

“When you look at Celtic they are obviously the top team in Scotland just now and they are in terrific form, but you also have to believe that at some point their run has got to come to an end and hopefully you are the team to do it.

“That will be the message we are putting out, but we know going there that a lot of things have to go in your favour on the day, and Celtic maybe have to have an off day.

“The one thing you have to be is organised and work as hard as you possibly can to give yourself a chance of taking something from the game.”

The match is the first in a nightmare sequence for the Accies that sees them take on Celtic away, Aberdeen at home, Hearts away and Rangers away as well as their Scottish Cup quarter final at Ibrox too.

“It’s a difficult run and it’s the second time this season we’ve had that sort of run of games,” said Canning. “It makes it difficult.

“I don’t know if that’s something that’s looked at when the fixture are put out, but we’ve all got to play these teams at some point throughout the course of the season anyway, but it just so happens that for us this season, we’ve played them all in a row.

“From the same run of games earlier in the season though we drew at Rangers and we beat Aberdeen, so we’ve taken four points out of 12 and I think that’s the minimum again that we’ve got to look to do at least, if not better than that.

“We know it will be difficult because against these teams and going to these places as we found in December, you can play well and not get any points which is sometimes difficult to take.

“But we need to make sure we work hard, that’s going to be key, and be organised and give ourselves a chance in every game to take points.”

Canning revealed that defender Georgios Sarris and midfielder Greg Docherty may return from injury for the short trip to Glasgow after returning to training this week, but the game will come a week too soon for Ali Crawford and Alex D’Acol.