Hibs eager to rediscover cutting edge against Aberdeen

Martin Boyle is keen to bounce back from Saturday's defeat by St Johnstone

Only Celtic and Rangers have scored more than the 21 claimed by Neil Lennon’s team but Boyle insisted that total would be much higher if he and his team-mates could improve their chances-to-goals ratio.

After drawing a blank against Hearts and St Johnstone in their last two matches, Hibs travel to face Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Friday night. Boyle concedes it will be a tough task against a Dons side which appears to be recovering from an indifferent start to the season to now sit on the same points total as the Capital club.

Hibs and Aberdeen drew 0-0 the last time they met, Drek McInnes’ players winning that Betfred Cup quarter-final on penalties before going on to claim their place in the final by beating Rangers at Hampden.

But Boyle insisted it would have been an entirely different story had Lennon’s side turned their superiority that night into goals. He said: “I wouldn’t say we feel we owe them one, but I think everyone would agree we should have won that game. We dominated it but we missed out on another day at Hampden by not taking our chances. We’ve been creating chances but not scoring enough and we know we can’t keep relying on Adam Bogdan and the boys at the back. We know we should be scoring more goals even although we are among the top scoring teams in the league. We are getting into the right areas. It’s not as if we aren’t getting chances but we need that cutting edge, we need to be more clinical.”

Having said that, Boyle believes he and his team-mates had let themselves down with a poor performance as they lost a last-minute goal to St Johnstone although he believes they can bounce back against Aberdeen, pointing out there’s been little between the sides over the past couple of seasons. He said: “Things are very tight in the league. Only a few weeks ago, we were sitting second, now we are sixth. A win on Friday and we could be right back up there, the league is that competitive. Everyone is doing well at the moment and it doesn’t get any tougher than Aberdeen away. We weren’t good enough against St Johnstone and we know we need to rectify that. We know we can do better. We always have a cracking game with Aberdeen and I’d expect this one to be exactly the same. Derek McInnes has them set up really well but we need to bounce back and having Flo Kamberi available again will be a massive boost for us.”