Revealed: The one critic Hibs ace can ALWAYS rely on for straight verdict and tough love honesty
Cadden: ‘I always wind mum and dad up by saying Chrissie was the golden child ...’
Everybody needs someone to provide honest feedback. In a world as brutal as football, where judgement is a many-headed beast spitting out hot takes custom-made for instant rage, it’s an absolute necessity.
Nicky Cadden considers himself lucky, then, to have a family who pride themselves on giving him straight answers to difficult questions. There is, Cadden insists, no sugar coating when it comes to assessing his performance.
That goes for twin brother Chris – who Nicky jokingly calls “the golden child” – in their regular conversations about the game. As Hibs team-mates, they’ve got plenty of opportunities to talk football these days.
But the honesty policy is probably best illustrated by the attitude of dad Steve, a former player and coach who – along with mum Avril - keeps both of the Cadden boys firmly grounded.
In a conversation that started with a question about how much stock Nicky puts in statistics, Nicky volunteered: “I've been in the game long enough where I think I know if I've played bad or if I've played good. And my dad will tell me after the game!
“If I thought I was good and I was, he can still be like: ‘No you were …’ I was just about to swear there. It doesn't happen often because I can tell if I've had a bad game.
“My dad's good that way. He can go through you a few times but he does give you a lot of praise.
Feeling ‘on top of the world’ when dad is happy
“When you do play well, when he does give you that praise, you feel like you're on top of the world because you must have done well. It's good to have that family.
“Even like Chrissie. If he tells me something I should improve on, I tell him something to improve on. We can talk about that and it's good to have that closeness with my family. It's a big thing that relates to football so we talk a lot about it.
“Who is the favourite? Chrissie always says it’s who does better - but I say it's him. I always wind my mum and dad up saying he was the golden child! They don't like that so I'll let you decide.
“We wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for my dad taking us everywhere when we were younger. I think he quite likes the fact that he's invested in it.
“And my mum as well, they do really well. They tell us what we can do and what we can improve on. It's good to have that family around you.”
With Nicky on the left and Chris on the right, Hibs can expect their respective wingbacks to have a pretty good on-field understanding of how the other likes to play. Again, honesty is at the heart of their relationship.
“Yeah, of course,” said Nicky, when asked if he and his brother can share some occasionally painful home truths. “I know him more than anybody in the world. We've got a good relationship and I feel like we can be open and honest with each other.
“Even if it's bad, we don't fight over it. We just have a discussion. As you would, brothers want to see each other do well. If he sees something, he's going to tell me what to do to change it.”
David Gray’s men up to third in Scottish Premiership
As a group, Hibs are feeling that bit better about themselves after dismantling Livingston last weekend. Not least because one single win saw them leap to third place in the Scottish Premiership.
For a team with just two wins, but crucially also just a single loss, from their opening eight games, they’re not doing too badly. A fact often overlooked.
“Everybody's talking about how we've not started well but we've only lost one game,” said Cadden. “Obviously, a few of the draws, we were thinking we should have picked up points there.
“When you look back at it, we're third on the table now and we've not really had the best start, wins-wise. I think we can build on that and obviously build on the weekend's performance.
“I think the league's getting stronger and stronger each year. There's a lot of good teams in there, not just the big five or the big six. There are good teams, even the ones coming up from the Championship.
“You see Falkirk taking points off Motherwell and you can see they're a good side and they're going to do well this year as well. You can tell that it's a strong league this year.
“We knew coming into this year, everybody's going to be talking about us because we went 17 games unbeaten or whatever last season. We know everybody's going to talk about us.
“It's just the nature of the beast really. We just focus on ourselves. After every game, we look at what we could have done better. Let's just focus on the next one now and hopefully we can start getting a few wins.”
Can Aberdeen recover from UEFA Conference League humiliation?
Hibs head north to face and Aberdeen side who have just been pummelled by AEK in Athens. Having been given a lucky loser’s spot in the UEFA Conference League, the Dons are finding that European involvement comes at a price.
Cadden, part of a Hibs side who juggled UEFA and domestic competition as the Easter Road side competed in three qualifying rounds before eventually succumbing to Legia Warsaw, knows from experience how much of a toll these adventures take, saying: “It was tough, not just physically but mentally as well. You're not really getting a chance to focus on the last game because you've got a game coming up so soon.
“I actually weirdly enjoyed it because it was just games, games, games. I just love playing games of football.
“When you're younger, that's what you dream about doing. I don't take my position here for granted. There's a lot of people who’d love to be in my position.
“I feel like if you're playing games of football and playing every week, even during the week, it's a blessing. It is tough but at the same time it's what I love to do. It's tough on the body and the mind - but you get over it.”