It’s far from fun times being a follower of Hibs at the moment. There’s so much wrong at the club it would take Einstein and Stephen Hawkins decades to work out an algorithm to cure all the current problems.
When Pat Fenlon’s resigned in November the majority of supporters welcomed the Irishman’s departure from the hot seat and were suitably impressed when Rod Petrie identified Terry Butcher as his replacement and captured him, his assistant Maurice Malpas and apparent talent finder supreme Steve Marsella.
Things since haven’t exactly gone to plan however.
There was an initial upturn in results and performances after the new man arrived at the club but since the turn of the year, simply put, everything has been dreadful.
Butcher’s Hibs outfit are rank. They’ve managed to assemble the grand total of 8 points from their last 18 Scottish Premiership matches. 1 win, 5 draws and 12 defeats. Again, simply put, that’s unacceptable.
Who should hold the can for the appalling current form? Well Butcher hasn’t done himself any favours.
He appears to have no plan B when Plan A of lumping the ball long or into a channel for paceless wide men to chase isn’t working. His apparent unwillingness to digress from 4-5-1 to a two up front system when playing so-called ‘weaker’ (stop laughing up the back) sides offers little hope that his much heralded arrival can finally turn around the fortunes of the biggest underachieving club in Scotland.
Clearly his decision back in January to inform players such as Kevin Thomson and Tom Taiwo they were no longer in his first team plans has backfired whilst also affecting squad morale.
The fans are informed squad meetings have taken place, the atmosphere is positive, training has been fantastic – well then Terry, why hasn’t it transgressed onto the field of play?
The players genuinely look clueless at times on the park. Constant changes to the starting line up are mooted as an excuse for some indifferent performances but you simply can’t make the same mistakes over and over again and expect different results.
Last nights defeat to Ross County saw another individual mistake cost Hibs dearly. The amount of errors from players resulting in goals conceded this season is worrying – they just don’t make it hard enough for the opposition to score and this is something which should have been eradicated on the training ground very early under Butcher’s tenure.
Not content with gifting goals there may be a glimmer of hope if the Hibees were to show intent and purpose at the other end of the park but there’s nothing up there either.
Mis-firing would be kind to the current strikers at the club but in truth bar young Jason Cummings, the others have the kind of goal threat any semi decent junior side would handle.
It’s an appalling state of affairs and there’s a shot at salvation when Kilmarnock come calling at the weekend where the squad and management know a victory secures Premiership status for another season – whether they can rise to the occasion is debatable.
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