Hamilton boss Billy Reid has urged his players to "give themselves a chance" against Raith in their Co-op Cup second-round tie at Starks Park.

Accies have got off to a nightmare start in their Scottish Premier League campaign with two 4-0 defeats, Saturday's capitulation at home to Hearts following on from their opening-day loss at Aberdeen.

Reid castigated his players after the defeat against the Jambos and knows massive improvement is required if they are not to be the next victims of Rovers, who sit top of the Irn-Bru First Division with three wins out of three.

"This is a chance for the players to redeem themselves but even if we had won the first two SPL games and taken six out of six, this would still be a hard game," Reid said.

"Raith Rovers will see us as a potential scalp.

"They have got nine points out of nine and are top of the league so that tells you everything you need to know about them at the moment.

"But we have got to give ourselves a chance to win the game.

"We have conceded four penalties in two games and you can't do that.

"There was comedy-cuts defending in the Hearts game and two of the goals we lost were atrocious.

"We have to cut out the individual mistakes and if we do that then I will be confident of getting a result.

"We have been trounced 4-0 and 4-0 but we have not been murder in terms of our overall play.

"But we have leaders missing at the moment and when we get them back then we will be okay.

"The cup is important to us. We lost at Ross County in our first game in the competition last year so we know what to expect against Raith Rovers."

Source: Team Talk