PRIDE and frustration were the two main emotions for Martin Canning after his Accies side pushed Celtic hard yesterday.

The Hamilton manager watched on from the touchline as his side took a shock lead after just four minutes through Gramoz Kurtaj after he pounced on a Dedryck Boyata mistake.

His team then showed great resilience to bounce back from the concession of two cheap first-half Celtic goals to push the Parkhead club close after the break and limit Celtic’s creativity going forward.

Alas, it was not enough to halt his team slipping to their first home defeat since February.

But the Hamilton manager couldn’t help but praise his team who go into the international break sitting fourth in the Ladbrokes Premiership.

He said: "I'm disappointed we didn't manage to take something from the game.

"In the first half we scored a great goal. It maybe came a bit early and we maybe tried to protect what we had before we should have. I thought we showed a little too much respect.

"But in the second half I thought we were different class. I thought we had one or two half chances and it would have been interesting if we had taken one. The momentum seemed to be with us.

"The biggest things from this game are frustration and pride. I was proud of the players for working so hard. Being 2-1 down at half-time it wasn't easy but you could see why you could feel hard done by and not put in the second half performance we did.

"To take something from the game I don't think anyone would have argued with it."

It was a feeling of disappointment shared by the man who slammed Accies into an early lead.

The German showed great instinct to firstly pound on a lapse at the back from Celtic before demonstrating his ability to finish neatly under Craig Gordon.

Things looked promising at that stage for the hosts, and despite coming unstuck against the Glasgow giants is no disgrace, the shine of netting his second Hamilton goal was not enough to lift his spirits.

"We are disappointed not to at least get a draw,” said Kurtaj.

"We scored the first goal and I felt we had to keep Celtic out until the second half, as they would have got nervous.

"But they scored two and it was difficult for us. The game changed and we had to chase it. It was a great chance to get a result but we have to move on. That's life,

"We were aggressive and we pressed them into making mistakes. We wanted to be brave and show our class because we have been good form recently.

"There was no fear. We weren't scared and I felt we started the match in the best possible way.

"After the goal we had to try to carry on but Celtic are a great team. They have quality and we saw that.”