Dylan Vente opens up on Hibs fans and gives injury update

Dutch striker appreciates backing from supporters.

Hibs’ Dylan Vente

Dylan Vente hears you, Hibs fans. He appreciates your musical tribute, too.

And, even if not everyone knows the back story behind the melody, there’s something quite fitting in Scottish supporters serenading a Dutch striker to the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, a song first made popular during the American Civil War.

Because, without ever confusing sport with the real world, Vente is exactly the sort of guy Nick Montgomery will want in the trenches as Hibs look to recover from a tough start to this campaign.

Vente took a sore one in the very first moments of Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Rugby Park – but battled on manfully, only leaving the field when he’d scored his third goal of the season to put Hibs 2-0 up in Montgomery’s first game as head coach.

The £700,000 summer signing, who might have thought he’d done enough to secure victory for his team-mates before limping out of action, admitted: “In the first minute I tried to clear and someone hurt my leg.

“I was signalling to the bench that I wanted to continue. I always want to play. The first two or three minutes it didn’t feel nice.

“At half-time it was getting sore and it’s sore now, but I will recover well and be ready for next week.”

Vente played well in partnership with Christian Doidge, until the Welsh centre forward suffered a nasty head cut and was forced off at half-time, then found himself in harness with Adam Le Fondre.

He also linked well with both Martin Boyle and Elie Youan, the latter setting him up for his goal with a neat pass into the box.

The 24-year-old neatly shifted the ball onto his right foot before beating substitute goalie Kieran O’Hara with a low shot just inside his right-hand post. A real striker’s finish from a player delighted to have been taken to the hearts of Hibs fans.

Revealing that family back in the Netherlands had been sending him clips of supporters singing his terracing anthem, Vente said: “If the fans are singing your song, then that’s always a great feeling.

“If you score as a striker, that’s also a great feeling. Of course, it’s always good for a striker to score. A win would have been better but, yeah, it was good to score.

“The fans in Holland just sang my name – but here they have a full song. When the Hibs song about me came out, my family sent me like 20 messages. They like it as well, so it’s nice.

“I know the words – but I’m not singing it!”

While it’s fair to say that a few in the first team dressing room at East Mains weren’t exactly mourning the departure of Lee Johnson, the dismissal of the manager who had signed him put Vente in a potentially tricky position. Especially with the new manager coming in determined to ring changes.

Thrilled to have been given the nod by Montgomery for his first game at the helm, the former Feyenoord forward revealed: “The club have spoken to me and said nothing will change.

“And I like the style with the new coach. The manager has been here for just a couple of days but he wants to bring his style of how he wants us to play.”

Mongomery spoke about the amount of information he’d piled on players in his first four training sessions since beginning on Monday morning, the former Central Coast Mariners boss making changes to the starting line-up, formation and several other elements of the game plan at Rugby Park.

Revealing that the gaffer had split his lessons between the training pitch and the lecture theatre at East Mains, Vente said: “It’s a lot of information but as players we’ve picked it up well. It’s good he gave us a lot of information of how we want to play.

“On the grass we can perform how he wants us to play - but also in meetings he shows us how to play.

“If we have the ball, we have a philosophy of how we want to play and that’s good for us to build on. The game on Saturday wasn’t perfect so we have to get better to get results.”