Hamilton competing with top English clubs for strikers, says manager Martin Canning

Martin Canning is content with Accies' summer dealings

Hamilton's Martin Canning is biding his time to sign a striker - because his targets are waiting for approaches from clubs in England's top two divisions.

The Accies manager has added centre-half Xavier Tomas and goalkeeper Ryan Fulton to his squad this summer.

But he is looking for two forwards.

"The guys you know can make a difference, every other team wants them and the boys think they can play at a higher level for much bigger clubs," said Canning.

"At this stage, for clubs of our size, it's not easy to get in the guys you want to get in.

"So you've got to be patient, keep working at it.

"A lot of the players you know can make a difference think they can play in the English Championship or English Premier League and, rightly so, want to play at the highest level they can.

"Probably towards the end of the transfer window, it starts to get to the point where they realise that's not going to happen for them and have to broaden their search."

Xavier Tomas and Ryan Fulton have joined Accies as Giannis Skondras signed a new deal

Accies were the last club in the Scottish Premiership to make a signing this summer and it was not until the day before the season kicked off against East Kilbride in the League Cup that Tomas was signed for an undisclosed fee from Swiss top-flight outfit Lausanne-Sport.

However Canning, who has since added goalkeeper Fulton from Liverpool, insists that fans should not be concerned about the lack of changes to a squad that only avoided relegation thanks to a play-off win over Dundee United.

"The club have been great this year in backing us as much as they can," he said. "We weren't targeting eight, nine or 10 players.

"We are looking to bring four or five guys that will make a difference because this year we are in a good place again.

"Our young kids are coming through to give us squad players. We've got young Ryan Tierney, Ross Cunningham, Ronan Hughes, Shaun Want, Steven Boyd.

"If these guys were not coming through, I would probably be running about trying to bring in another five or six players from all over the place just to bulk up the squad."

Canning thinks some of the players breaking through have the potential to match the success of former Accies midfielders James McCarthy and James McArthur, who went on to command sizeable transfer fees and win caps for Republic of Ireland and Scotland respectively.

Canning hopes his young players can match the success of James McArthur and James McCarthy

In the short term, he hopes they will follow the example of defender Scott McMann, who became a first-team regular after progressing from the youth ranks last season.

Canning needed another central defender after the summer exits of Jesus Garcia Tena and Danny Seaborne, plus long-term injury to captain Michael Devlin.

Meanwhile, Fulton is a replacement for Remi Matthews, who returned to Norwich City after his loan spell.

"We have been looking for a big dominant centre-back all summer," added Canning.

"It has been a long process and I can assure you you spend lots of hours on the computer looking at CVs - you get hundreds of them sent through every week and you're constantly looking through them, scared not to look at one just in case you miss something.

"So it's very time-consuming and Xavier stood out about a month ago and it was something we have been working on.

"Ryan, we kept an eye on him right from the end of last season when we knew Remi was going back.

"Initially, we were looking at getting him in on loan, but eventually we got a deal to make him our player, which is even better."