Flatlining Hibs must find right answer to F-word question - or risk derby disaster when Hearts come calling

Football is a game of chaos. And Scottish football is especially prone to wild extremes likely to dispute the very idea of a logical universe governed by any sort of laws.

But please, in the name of the Famous Five, Turnbull’s Tornadoes, THAT late goal at Hampden and everything else held dear by Hibs fans, stop pretending that next weekend’s home game against Hearts presents David Gray’s men with the perfect opportunity to bounce back from a season-long run of misery and failure. That’s going beyond the sort of quantum activity described, in distinctly unscientific terms, as “spooky” by no less a figure than Albert Einstein, a man whose theories would never have survived exposure to the average Edinburgh derby.

To argue that Hibs should be somehow fancied to topple a Hearts side suddenly looking a team transformed under their new gaffer, simply because that’s the sort of crazy thing that happens in the beautiful game? That sort of thinking belongs in the Twilight Zone.

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Unless Gray can root out the persistent mental and footballing flaws seemingly hard-wired into his squad of underperforming underachievers, this Hibs team will continue to squander opportunities and suffer from self-inflicted calamities. Relegation, even at this early stage of the season, is already a threat to a team whose one league win of the campaign cost the opposition manager his job.

If the rookie head coach is to ride out the four games left before the next international break without his position coming under the most extreme pressure, he’ll need to find answers to problems ranging from the fatal to the merely crippling. Some solutions seem fairly obvious.

Get this goalie out of the firing line

Nobody is saying that Josef Bursik doesn’t have talent. But everybody can see that the guy is struggling at the moment.

Anyone with the emotional strength to rewatch the ‘highlights’ of yesterday’s brutalising 3-2 loss to Dundee United would have seen how badly Burisk flapped under pressure. In near enough the 100th minute of a game that Hibs SHOULD have won, he makes one of the worst decisions of the season (and that’s quite the competition, even if we restrict the field to Hibs players only) by coming for a relatively harmless flick on a nothing ball into the box.

Fair play to big Joe, he did clean out his man in the process. Unfortunately, his man in this instance was team-mate Jack Iredale, whose debut must have left the centre-half wondering what he’d signed on for, exactly.

If you’re a defender in that Hibs back line, there’s no way you can have much faith in the goalie to make the right call under even moderate pressure. You can’t head into a pre-season bounce game with that sort of mistrust in the ranks. In a derby, it’s sporting suicide.

Should the skipper walk the plank?

Joe Newell will be suspended for the derby, so there’s no need for Gray to make a quick decision on what happens next to the man he appointed club captain in the summer. If everything is open to examination and review in the midst of such a genuine crisis, however, the question of the captaincy shouldn’t be excluded from all consideration.

Newell is one of the better players in the starting XI. A fine midfielder. And he’s been around long enough to know, in theory, what it takes to perform in the cut and thrust of the Scottish Premiership.

Newell makes the long walk to the tunnel at Tannadice. The skipper's red card was a turning point. | SNS Group

When you dig into his experience as a Hibs player, though, he’s experienced his fair share of failure. It’s entirely possible that he’s a quality footballer, a brilliant guy, a strong voice in the dressing room … but not the right captain for this team, in this situation.

The problem for Gray, of course, is finding someone to take the armband. Warren O’Hora has been deputy during Newell’s absence through injury. But the big Irishman has enough on his plate just settling into Scottish football, without being burdened with the extra responsibility – on a full-time basis – of dragging this lot out of the doldrums.

The F-word

Fight. Fire. Fierce desire to not only win, but to make sure the other guy loses. Nobody makes it to the lowest foothills of professional football without being competitive to the point of borderline psychosis.

Hyeokkyu Kwon looks dejected. Again. | SNS Group

But Gray himself has mentioned a “lack of desire” among his players to do the right thing. Just look at United’s equaliser from yesterday, for instance, and ask yourself if two or three Hibs boys couldn’t have done more to prevent the cross from coming in. And that’s just one example from a season when we’ve seen players fail in the most basic duties – getting goal side and throwing everything in the way to prevent a chance – on a regular basis.

Leading by example

Gray has given everything to his first job in management. First in and last out of the building, he’s applying a lot of good footballing knowledge and insight to a job that must occasionally feel like trying to complete a 3-D puzzle while wearing boxing gloves.  

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With his team rooted to the foot of the table, he’ll know that his position as manager is far from secure. In this moment of collective and personal crisis, he faces some tough calls.

Derby day hopes

Hearts are, objectively speaking, the second worst team in the Scottish Premiership. That’s what the league table tells us, anyway.

All hope should not be surrendered, then, simply because Hibs trail their city rivals by a single goal. And there is always room for the unpredictable in this fixture.

But Hibs can’t just expect their fortunes to change because everyone will be ‘up for’ a clash with their local rivals. Even in the upside-down world of Scottish football, gravity can’t be reversed without a nudge in the right direction. Or, as required, a hefty kick up the backside.