Hamilton manager Martin Canning has instructed his players to forget about their recent poor form ahead of a massive week in their fight for survival, telling them that their season starts now.

With four games to come before the split, and with three of them against fellow bottom-half strugglers, the next sequence of matches could go a long way to determining Accies’ fate.

Canning says that the international break has given his men an opportunity to draw a line in the sand after a disappointing run during some tough fixtures.

And now with what he classes as ‘winnable’ games ahead, he has asked his men to fully focus their efforts on their final nine matches and preserve their Premiership status.

“The break has allowed us to draw a line under those games,” Canning said.

“Now is the time to stop talking about being on a difficult run or anything else. What’s done is done.

“The best players can forget games quickly, whether they’ve played really well or really poorly. They move on and can get to a level every week.

“If you win 3-0 you can’t go out thinking you’re brilliant because you’ll get beat, and it’s the same if you get beat 3-0, you can’t go out thinking you’re s*** because you will get beat again.

“You have to take it week-by-week, clear your mind and take every game as it comes.

“That’s never been more important than now in these next nine games. The players have to make sure they treat these games individually and get themselves fully focused and fully primed.

“If they do that, then there’s no reason why we can’t go on and win these next nine games.”

Hamilton’s cause will be aided by the return of key players from injury in captain Michael Devlin and forward Alex D’Acol for Saturday's home game against St Johnstone.

“It definitely is a boost to have them back,” he said. “It’s our main centre-back and our main centre-forward, your real focal points.

“We were missing Darian MacKinnon for two of the four games during that period as well, so he’s a big one to have back too because that’s right through the spine of your team.

“If you can keep those three fit and keep them in your team then it will go a long way to us winning games because they are so important for us.

“There was a point where we had a full team of players who would be a good Premiership team out injured, and we can’t afford to have that.

“It’s credit to the boys that we’ve got that we’ve managed to dig deep and give ourselves a chance over the next nine games to stay in the league.”