Hamilton manager Martin Canning has urged his side to start killing teams off ahead of their visit to Inverness tomorrow.

His side blew yet another lead at home to Partick Thistle last weekend, leaving Canning frustrated and his side stuck in the middle of the tightly-packed bunch of teams in the lower half of the table.

He admits that his men need to start developing more of a ruthless streak if they are to pull themselves out of trouble.

"It was another draw and we know we need to turn them into wins,” Canning said. “I told them on Saturday that just because you go ahead in a game, it doesn't give you the right to win the game. You've got to push and something we're not doing if we go one up is go two up, three up, four up.

"We're probably looking more not to lose which means you can end up picking up draws and that's what's happening. So the message this week is hopefully start the game well, kick on and try and go on and win the game.

"If you speak to managers after the games at the moment, they're all saying similar things to what I'm saying. I spoke to Archie [Alan Archibald] on Saturday and he was saying they should probably have won a couple more games than they have and we're saying the same thing.

“There are other clubs who'll be thinking the same way. It's so tight that small things make a big difference just now. With us, it's when you get ahead, go on and try to win the game from there - change the mindset from thinking about not losing to thinking about winning it.”

The importance of three points against Inverness tomorrow can hardly be underestimated, with matches against Celtic home and away as well as clashes with Aberdeen and Rangers before the Lanarkshire derby against Motherwell on Hogmanay lying in wait for Accies.

Canning though is heartened by the fact that their rivals around them in the table have similarly tough programmes ahead of the winter break.

"Every game's important - if you look at the clubs who are round about us, pretty much all of them have a difficult run around Christmas,” he said.

“It's about trying to pick up points wherever you can. Up at Inverness is a big game for us and we're going up there with the intention of taking three points.”

As you might expect given the tight nature of the table, Canning is expecting a there to be little between the sides when Hamilton travel to take on Richie Foran’s men.

With only Gramoz Kurtaj joining long-term injury victim Jesus Garcia Tena on the treatment table though, Canning is confident that the long trip north will not be in vein.

"Similar to everyone this season, [Inverness have been] a bit mixed,” he said.

“When we played them last year we were 1-0 up and they scored in the 94th minute to get a point out of the game. It was a close game but it's always difficult against them so we know going up there it's going to be difficult. But we know if we do our job properly we can go up there and take something.”