Airdrie make the short journey to Hamilton for the final match of 2024, and defender Sam Graham says tightening up at both ends of the park can help Airdrie to close the year with a victory.

The Diamonds are back on the road after three home matches in the space of a week, and while performances continue to steadily improve, only the visit of Morton yielded a return for Airdrie – who drew with the Cappielow side before losing to Livingston and Partick Thistle.

English defender Graham believes the Diamonds aren’t far away from turning a corner, but must continue to improve.

“We’ve been performing a bit better, and players coming back has helped with that, but we’re still not close to where we want to be.

“We’re still losing poor goals, and we need to be better there. If we keep the ball out of the net and take our chances at the other end, we’ll start getting results.”

A 2-0 defeat to Partick Thistle last weekend means that Airdrie remain nine points behind Dunfermline Athletic – who this week parted company with manager James McPake – at the foot of the table.

Despite the pre-match boost of Rhys McCabe and Dean McMaster returning to the starting line-up, a quick double just before half-time saw the Maryhill side to victory. Graham believes the Diamonds were well in the match until then.

“Conceding the goals, especially at that point in the game, was disappointing as we were creating chances before then.

“It’s not just that we’re creating chances, they’re better chances – if we put one of them away it’s a different game. We’d be more worried if we weren’t getting into those positions, but I think we just need to be more ruthless in both boxes.”

Saturday’s visit to New Douglas Park would be the ideal time to put that ruthlessness into practice, with Accies currently occupying eighth place in the Championship table.

A late comeback saw a share of the points the last time the sides met in Hamilton, Aaron Reid and Murray Aiken levelling in the last ten minutes after Oli Shaw’s double looked to have secured the points for John Rankin’s men back in August.

It was a different story when the sides met at the Albert Bartlett Stadium in November, Connor Smith, a Graham own goal, Kevin O’Hara and Dylan McGowan handing Hamilton a 4-0 win despite a host of chances at either end.

Sam says the Diamonds can put into practice the lessons learned from both matches.

“That 4-0 is a perfect example of what I’m saying – it was a crazy game and could have ended with a big win for either side, but they took their chances and we didn’t.

“We’ll go there on Saturday with a gameplan. It helps that we’ve already played them twice – we know what we’re up against and what they’re good at.

“Ultimately it’s about us though – the focus is on us and what we want to do. We know what our gameplan is and how we want to play. Now it’s about going out and doing that.”

Manager Rhys McCabe looks set to continue in defence after coming through last weekend’s match unscathed, and the Diamonds player-boss is looking forward to Saturday’s derby.

“It’s another good match to be involved in, and we’ll be ready for it. I was feeling it in the legs after playing last week, having not trained in a long time, but I’ll be fine!

“We know what to expect from Hamilton, and we know where we need to improve from last time. Although it was a heavy defeat, it could have easily finished 7-7 – it was like a basketball game.

“While we made chances, we were too open and we looked vulnerable. We’ll tighten that up on Saturday and hopefully end the year with a positive result.”

Midfielder Dean McMaster is also expected to be involved again after joining McCabe in returning against Partick Thistle.

Referee Don Robertson is in charge of the Lanarkshire showdown, his first tie involving Airdrie this season.

Match tickets are available using the link below, and our DiamondsTV video (subscribers outwith the UK and Ireland) and audio (pay-per-match worldwide) streams are available.