Accies No.2 Darian MacKinnon wants the club to return to their snarling best and says nobody should get an easy ride at New Douglas Park.
The Accies teams MacKinnon played in were in opponents’ faces, and he wants the current crop to adopt that style.
But he has asked for time for he and boss John Rankin to put their stamp on the squad as they bid for a Premiership return.
MacKinnon, 36, has returned to the club as first-team coach, having spent two years at Drumchapel United in the West of Scotland League.
And he wants to make sure he makes an impact, starting with the visit of Arbroath on Saturday.
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The club legend said: “We want to get a set style developed. We want to be high press, try and play when it’s on, like every other team. I’ll just be repeating what every other coach is saying.
“But we want to be in their faces, especially at home.
“Away from home everybody sits back a wee bit, but at our place we don’t want anybody to get an easy ride here.
“This league is like down south in the Championship, everybody can beat anybody on their day, it’s just about who brings their ‘A’ game on the day.
“If you put a run together you don’t know where it can take you. By the same token, if you start to lose games you can get sucked in.
“On our day we’re good enough, but if we drop the standards – as you saw against Raith Rovers {2-0 defeat] – I didn’t think we were great.
“We know ourselves, as a squad, a management team, coaching team, that it wasn’t good enough.
“All we can do is put that to bed and hopefully against Arbroath we get it right.”
MacKinnon admits Accies must concede fewer goals, but there is enough talent there to take points from Dick Campbell’s men. He added: “On Saturday it will be a challenge. They’re a good side, they proved it last season, but so are we on our day.
“We proved it down at Ayr United against a good team that were top of the league. We need to stamp out late goals against us. If you concede goals you ruin your chances of winning the game.
“But we’re all positive, we’re not doom and gloom. Training has been excellent since I’ve been here, the gaffer’s excellent on the pitch, so we didn’t see Saturday coming.
“Give us a wee bit of time to put our stamp on the squad and then we’ll see where we are.”
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