EVERYBODY at The Irish Voice would like to wish Pat Stanton a very Happy 80th Birthday.
The Hibernian fan, player, captain, cup-winner, manager, ambassador and legend must have been pleased to see David Gray’s men finally gain their first league victory of the season, as the Hibees swept aside Craig Levein’s St Johnstone 2-0 at Easter Road, with goals from Mykola Kukharevych and substitute Martin Boyle.
The Hibees battered the Perth men for most of the match and racked up 17 goal attempts to Saintees’ four. Rudi Molotnikov had a good first- half, Boyle looks to have found his new niche at Easter Road as an impact substitute and the Hibs defence kept its first clean sheet in a league match since mid-may. There was even an opportunity for Hibbies to playfully goad St Johnstone’s Jambo boss near the end of the match, too.
These are exactly the kind of afternoons that have been too few and far between for the Hibernian faithful in the past few years. The green jerseys now sit eighth in the Scottish Premiership table, four points clear of basement boys, Hearts, who appear to be seeking to add yet another relegation to their illustrious history.
Hibernian’s League Cup campaign was over before it ever really got going. The Hibees’ catastrophic humiliation in the ignominious group-stages against Kelty Hearts led directly to Hibs drawing Celtic in the last-16 knockout stages. The Hibees hadn’t won a cup tie at Celtic Park since the 1902 Scottish Cup Final, and the Hoops’ Daizen Maeda, after just 17 minutes of the match, scored a double, which ensured that record would remain intact. Things could have been very different. Hibs did pull one back via a fine header by Kukharevych after 35 minutes and seemed to be exploiting Celtic’s only real domestic weakness—defending long balls and crosses. Then, ten minutes into the second-half, goalkeeper Josef Bursik and defender Marvin Ekpiteta contrived to make a pig’s ear of playing it out from the back, allowing Nicolas Kühn to score Celtic’s third, which effectively ended the contest.
The following Saturday saw Dundee visit Easter Road. Fans saw an entertaining 2-2 draw, but the Cabbage were once again cursed by conceding a late equaliser, scored by former Hibee, Simon Murray. Scott Tiffoney had given the Dees an early lead, but that was cancelled out by Boyle, then impressive new boy, Kieron Bowie, had Hibernian in the driving seat with a 72nd minute strike. Bowie has since picked up an injury while playing for Scotland’s Under-21s and may be out injured for a considerable time.
One week later, at Rugby Park (above), Hibs again threw away two points by conceding a late goal. A wonderful long-range Joe Newell strike had Gray’s men heading for a victory, until Bruce Anderson equalised for Killie in injury time. The Hibees would currently be third in the table, were it not for these late collapses—that’s encouraging food for thought.
Hibs’ absence from the League Cup means that the team has next weekend off— another week without a match so soon after the tedious international break could either help or hinder Hibs.
Ten new players have arrived in total, including experienced veteran striker, Dwight Gayle. English star strikers coming to Scotland in the twilight of their careers tend to have mixed fortunes, so let’s hope that Gayle is a force to be reckoned with (sorry), and that his impact in Scotland is more akin to that of Jermaine Defoe’s, than that of Ian Wright’s.
Hibernian’s next match is on September 29 against Rangers at Ibrox. The Hibees haven’t won a league match against the Govan outfit in over six years. If there’s one fixture in which the Hibees really need a victory, it’s this one. Will Gray succeed where Heckingbottom, Ross, Maloney, Johnson and Montgomery all failed? This dreadful run against Rangers surely can’t last forever?
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