There were a few boos around me at full-time on Saturday at Easter Road. The performance hadn’t been that bad, but there’s a growing feeling the team isn’t reaching its potential.
A goalless draw against the league’s bottom side will do that, though, and despite Hibs dominating the game, hitting the bar twice and missing when it looked easier to score will cause frustration among the support.
At times Hibs played some cracking stuff but for large chunks of the game it was dull, plodding fare. The centre-halves dominated the ball and while that seems to be the way modern football is played, it does nothing to get you off your seat when the team is chasing a goal.
David Gray’s team have a bit of an image problem at the moment – we’re not seen as the swashbuckling, cavalier, all-out-attacking side a lot of fans want (there’s some hyperbole at play there, admittedly).
But the team regularly exceed 20 shots on goal in a match and we’ve scored only four fewer than Hearts and Rangers and one less than a Motherwell side that’s been lauded for its play, so why are some folk finding it boring?
I am rarely bored watching Hibs, but there were points on Saturday when I felt the game really needed something to bring it to life. And while I don’t agree, there are enough disgruntled fellow fans to make me think there’s something in it.
Hibs are usually comfortable in games, we rarely batter a team and rarely get battered. It would be good to see us try to steamroller someone before the season’s out – though that gets harder as we near the split.
That said, I’ll take a 1-0 win at Motherwell this weekend no matter how it’s achieved. Things will feel a lot better if we can reel the Steelmen in over the next few weeks.
You can find Matty Fairnie at Longbangers podcast
