John Rankin has issued a rallying cry to supporters after Hamilton Accies’ embarrassing 5-0 defeat to Morton last week, as he called on everyone at the club to pull together to help end their rotten run.
The New Douglas Park side went down with a whimper at Cappielow and the result leaves them just a point off of the bottom of the Scottish Championship, looking set for a relegation dogfight this season on current form.
Rankin’s men found themselves 3-0 down inside 23 minutes and Morton netted their fifth goal nine minutes into the second half to leave them shellshocked.
Now league leaders Partick Thistle come calling this weekend and Rankin hopes Hamilton’s concerned support can give them the backing they need to kick start their season, and end a run of three straight defeats without scoring.
He said: “I understand it is frustrating for the fans. It is really frustrating for all of us but we have to all pull together and believe we will get out of this, the results will come and they are just around the corner.
“We need their voice and the players right now need their warmth.
“We need their support, their encouragement, their help and their noise.
“If they can get behind us it makes a huge difference to the players.
“I go on about how young the players are and we are a really young team so we need really good backing.
“They need to feel wanted and feel that bit of encouragement when they make a challenge or they have a shot and they don’t hit the target.
“It becomes important because they are young players.
“They are feeling the hurt. They’ve never been in this position before, where they are playing first team games.
“Many players this season have already played more minutes than they did in the whole of last season.
“It would be great if the supporters could back us and help us on the way to three points.”
Rankin insists his side are not sulking after their recent run and is demanding that they show their fighting spirit against the Jags.
He added: “It’s only a tough week if you are feeling sorry for yourself, but I don’t plan on feeling sorry for myself and the players don’t either.
“Morton was a bad result and we have lost three points. The manner in which we’ve done that is extremely disappointing but we have to learn quickly from that.
“Individual errors and mistakes are costing us. To concede five goals away from home and you are only 10 minutes into the second half, that is bitterly disappointing.
“It’s a confidence thing with the players now. We hit the bar and had one cleared off the line and it seems to be that is the way things are going for us right now.
“But we won’t feel sorry for ourselves.
“There is only one way to get out of this and that is hard work. We have to trust one another and when we look to the left and to the right, it’s players that we want to go into the trenches with.
“We have to roll our sleeves up and fight. We need to earn the right to play. Did we do that on Saturday? We were nowhere near it.
“We were miles off it. So we need a massive push this week.”
Yesterday, Rankin fielded almost an entire squad of first team players in their 2-1 Reserve League Cup defeat to Ayr United. The likes of Dan O'Reilly, Dario Zanatta, John-Pierre Tiehi, Matthew Shiels, Lewis Smith, Reegan Mimnaugh, Steve Lawson, Ellis Brown and Jonny Ngandu were all involved.
Asked if he was sending a statement after the Morton defeat, Rankin said: "You'll need to ask them if that sent a message or not.
"We needed players to get minutes and work hard in those minutes, so that was the important thing and we got that out of the exercise that was there."
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