HAMILTON have been here before but this time it feels different.

The league's perennial escape artists have lost 15 of their last 20 Premiership matches. Manager Martin Canning has lost the majority of supporters, be it temporarily or permanently, and with a trip to Celtic Park coming up this Saturday, now would be a good time to produce something special.

Accies will most likely lose by a few goals. Their next league game after that is a home match with Dundee who at the moment sit in the play-off place. Hamilton are a point better off.

Hamilton's 3-0 home defeat to Aberdeen on Wednesday night, which meant seven losses and a draw in their last eight matches in all competitions, left the struggling Lanarkshire outfit just two points above bottom side St Mirren.

With confidence close to zero among the squad, at least that's how it looks from the outside, Canning has the unenviable job of somehow convincing his players they can go to Celtic Park and get a point.

Results have been poor and the football just as bad. The abuse aimed at the manager on Wednesday at New Douglas Park - players such as Dougie Imrie did not escape the frustration - is now a weekly occurrence.

And yet Canning is still able to put on a positive face.

He said: "If you go there doubting yourself or lacking that little bit of confidence, good players sense that and they can really punish you.

"We have got to go there with the belief that we can get something from the game, everyone working hard, the concentration high and approaching that game no different to how we would normally approach those games and see if we can take something from it.

"It will be talking, encouraging, trying to make it bubbly.

"The belief that we can win the game seems to be there at the start of every match, and we start games well and then it is the belief when we concede that we need to work on.

"Obviously going to Celtic Park, if that happens, you have to continue to stay in the game, continue to believe.

"At 1-0 last night, if we don't make the silly mistake for the second goal, it only takes a set-piece, or Aberdeen maybe start to nervy in the last 20 minutes and make a couple of mistakes.

"But we keep letting teams get into a position where they almost go into easy street and it becomes even more difficult to get back into the game because you don't keep it competitive.

"And that's one thing you have to do at Celtic Park, you have to keep it competitive from minute one to minute 90."