Is Hibs sacking a fourth manager in two-and-a-half years really the answer?

CEO Ben Kensell and majority shareholder Kit Gordon in discussion at Sunday’s home humiliation.

Players ‘already on holiday’ doubt illustrates scale of crisis

On his arrival in Scotland, Nick Montgomery knew all about Hibernian’s reputation for changing managers with a frequency pitched somewhere between hasty and indecent. Which is why he sought assurances, before agreeing to replace the sacked Lee Johnson back in September, that the board would provide “patience, stability and time” for him to effect substantial change on an over-sized squad thrown together with all the measured restraint of a Jackson Pollock paint-splatter production.

Yet these are dangerous times for a straight-talking Yorkshireman whose blunt honesty often seems at odds with a natural tendency, among the coaching fraternity, to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Torn between a desire to defend his work but also eager to make Hibs fans understand the full horror of the situation he inherited, Monty – under fresh pressure after a 4-0 home scudding by Aberdeen – is entitled to feel as if he’s been undermined by the performances of players he would never have signed.

So, when asked about his team appearing to down tools at Easter Road yesterday, the former Central Coast Mariners boss seemed on the verge of making a startling admission/accusation as he said: “If you want me to answer if the boys are on holiday already, I can’t answer that. That’s a personal thing.”

Those are the words of a man clearly at his wit’s end with a group of professional footballers unable or unwilling to do the basics. In his post-match interview with Sky Sports, Montgomery was also quizzed about the board statement issued in the wake of his team’s failure to make the top six. The official club communique – issued as a collective statement, with no individual director taking responsibility – led many to believe that the gaffer was on the brink.

“If you are asking me if that statement coming out really helped, probably not,” said Monty, when pressed on the subject yesterday, the former Sheffield United stalwart adding: “From that moment on, people have obviously made whatever they want from that statement.”

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Speaking about the Easter Road hierarchy’s proven tendency to jettison managers at the first sign of trouble, meanwhile, he revealed: “Look, when I came to the club, we spoke about it. And my worry was that the club don’t give people time to implement what they want to do as a coach.

“But we spoke about changing the identity, bringing a new culture. The club has been through some real difficult times, and that takes time to build.

“It’s a club that has changed a lot of managers. That’s why it needs patience, stability and time. And those are three things that we spoke about when I came in and accepted the job.”

Plenty of people said plenty of things when Monty arrived at East Mains in September. Few doubted the intentions of anyone involved in a deal that saw a promising young manager – an A-League winner despite his Mariners team operating on the smallest budget in Australia’s elite division – leap at the chance to make his name in British football.

Most fair judges will also understand that Montgomery hasn’t been given a fair run at the job. Not yet. He clearly deserves a chance to build a team in the right order, from recruitment to preseason and beyond. But the man himself accepts that this campaign has delivered Hibs fans less than zero in terms of customer satisfaction.

Would changing the manager - today, tomorrow or in the lull sure to follow after Sunday’s closing fixture away to already relegated Livingston - improve things? Not when it comes to overhauling a shambolically over-sized squad carrying dangerously excessive quantities of deadwood.

Which is why Montgomery feels confident enough to declare, as he did again yesterday, that: “I’ve got full belief that I’m the man to turn things around at this club. And I’ve had the backing of plenty of people.

“I keep saying this, but there are a lot of things that need to change. There is lots of hard work that needs to be done I believe this club is on the right trajectory moving forward. But this result doesn’t help that.”

That’s an understatement. Being so comprehensively turned over at home to Aberdeen – especially THIS Aberdeen – is a textbook example of the kind of result that gets a manager the sack. Whatever directors may say about long-term plans and big-picture perspective, there’s always one loss that feels like a humiliation too far for any board.

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The ongoing review of football operations and the £6 million investment by billionaire Bournemouth owner Bill Foley’s Black Knight group make this an interesting time for all at HTC. With a squad cull already underway and a change in culture still taking root, another admission that they’d appointed the wrong guy would reinforce the club’s image as an organisation entirely without leadership in the areas where it matters most.

Foley and his advisers, universally praised for standing by Andoni Iraola despite a brutal start to his time at Bournemouth, will obviously be involved in what happens next. The real question is whether the Gordon family honestly believe that sacking a fourth manager in less than two-and-a-half years – beginning with Jack Ross in December of 2021- has become so necessary that they’ll happily take another hit to their reputation as custodians of such a major Scottish sporting institution.