John McGlynn on why Hamilton Accies win would help 'put to bed' psychological facet and Falkirk team news

The Bairns come into the match in South Lanarkshire boasting an undefeated run that stretches 20 matches long, but the hosts, who are top currently on goal difference, have also been in excellent form this campaign.

And with Accies clearly Falkirk’s main challengers at this time for the league title (although Cove Rangers are certainly motoring below) the boss says that a win would ‘put to bed’ their record in in these sort of matches.

Last season, Dunfermline managed to not only win the third tier title, but also go unbeaten over the four matches against McGlynn’s men, and after a bore draw with Accies in the opening meeting of this season’s top two – a victory would mean a lot more than just three points.

"That is the challenge,” McGlynn told the Falkirk Herald. “We want to win the head to heads. The first game finished 0-0 and we cancelled each other out. We’ll take the game to them and try to win because having that psychological advantage would be beneficial.

"We didn’t managed to do it last year against Dunfermline so it is something we want to put that to bed, get that monkey off our back.

He added: “We’re going well aren’t we? We know how we play and we aren’t going to make any drastic changes. We are going to do what we try to do every game, and hopefully do it even better than we usually do against strong opposition. We haven’t done anything different this week – every game is difficult. The next game in the next game.

“The next opposition will always want to beat you when you have the unbeaten tag. That’s human nature and how it is – we have to use it as motivation. Celtic lost last week so that is another team’s record gone. We realise that continuing our run would be great but this game is enough motivation.

“We are level on points at the moment but we have a game in hand and it doesn’t take the brains of Britain to work out that winning would give us a bit of daylight between us if we can keep on winning including that game in hand.”

McGlynn also confirmed that he is hoping to have a full compliment to choose from when the team head to Hamilton this weekend, with captain Stephen McGinn among a host of players who got minutes on the pitch during Tuesday’s 7-2 loss to Dundee in the SPFL Reserve Cup.

"We’ve had the guys as a full group today (Thursday) for the first time really this week which is a little disruptive due to having a reserves game, but the good news is that I think we will have everyone available,” he revealed. “That doesn’t happen often for us. Brad McKay should be available and Stephen McGinn is back. We might even need to leave someone in the stands.

“McGinn’s experience is massive and him being a part of it again, on the pitch like against Dundee in our midweek reserves match, lets him feel invovled and that is brilliant.”