‘I feel a bit for him’ – Michael Weir gives opinion on Christian Doidge’s travails in front of goal for Hibs

Paul Heckingbottom now has plenty of time to wrestle with a major decision he has to make ahead of our next match against Hamilton – does he stick with Chrisitian Doidge or drop him in favour of Flo Kamberi?
Hibs striker Christian Doidge has been the subject of much debate since his string of misses against Aberdeen. Pic: SNSHibs striker Christian Doidge has been the subject of much debate since his string of misses against Aberdeen. Pic: SNS
Hibs striker Christian Doidge has been the subject of much debate since his string of misses against Aberdeen. Pic: SNS

Doidge hogged all the headlines for all the wrong reasons, the entire focus being on the chances he had to clinch Hibs a first win at Pittodrie in seven years.

There will be no-one feeling worse about what happened than Doidge himself. I don’t know what sort of character he is, but I can only hope it doesn’t affect him too much.

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All strikers go through these sort of patches when they can’t buy a goal. Unfortunately for him, having come to Easter Road with a big transfer fee – at least in terms of Hibs – he’s hit this dry spell just at the time he’d have been hoping to hit the ground running by scoring goals, getting the fans behind him and justifying the money spent.

Managers are paid to make decisions, so it will be up to Heckingbottom how he deals with the situation. Sometimes a player just needs to be played through a spell like this, as tough as it might be for him.

Any striker going to a new club will tell you that first goal is vital. It brings the confidence they thrive on and how often do you see a frontman break his duck and then go on a scoring streak?

Unfortunately for strikers and goalkeepers, they find themselves in the firing line. Midfield players and others can get away with things but one miss, or in the case of a goalie, one mistake that costs a goal and the weight of the world immediately falls on their shoulders.

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Doidge could have made up scorning those earlier chances had he squared the ball to Scott Allan for a tap-in rather than electing to shoot again when presented with that final opportunity.

Had he done so, Hibs would have gone 2-0 up, the game would have been out of sight for Aberdeen who were down to ten men by that point and we’d probably be talking about what a good win it was rather than Doidge although, it has to be said, we lost a very poor goal to allow the Dons to equalise.

I feel a bit for Doidge. His overall game has been not bad, he’s worked hard, caused defences a few problems and against both Celtic and Aberdeen he’s timed his runs well to get into good positions.

You’d like to think that if he keeps doing that then the goals will come sooner rather than later. The positives are that we are now creating good chances but it isn’t all down to one man.

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Remember we played against ten men for half-an-hour and were unable to press home that advantage. We had to try to make that extra man count but we didn’t and as long as there’s only one goal in it, even against ten men, you can be vulnerable and so it proved.