Hibs ace on fan criticism guaranteed to 'annoy' players as winger makes 'sunshine and daisies' claim

Hibs winger Nicky Cadden has revealed the one criticism guaranteed to infuriate players giving their all for the Easter Road club. But he’s admitted that the current squad need to fully embrace the dark side – and start demanding more from each other.

Cadden briefly thought he’d saved a point for Hibs in yesterday’s 2-1 home loss to St Mirren. Having already dragged his team back into the contest with an injury-time penalty, he had the ball in the back of the net against just moments later – only for his effort to be ruled out for offside.

Defeat leaves Hibs rooted to the foot of the Scottish Premiership. Leaving aside what the result means – or meant – for under-pressure gaffer David Gray, the players understand supporter unrest in a season where their team has won just a single league game.

But Cadden believes punters are wrong to accuse players of not sharing in their pain, the experienced wide man saying: “That’s the one thing that really annoys me. Saying players don’t take it to heart because, oh, we play football, we’re in a good job, or we’re well paid.

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“Obviously we can say, yeah, we weren’t great, we can say that. But we care probably as much as everyone else.

“If I win on Saturday, I’m happy. If I lose, I’m unhappy for the next couple of days and my missus gets the brunt of it. It’s probably harder for her than me because, obviously, I’m not really nice to be around because I just shut myself off, I look deep into things. 

“That’s me as a person and I’m sure everybody in there is the same because we’re not happy with performances. We’re not happy. It’s not like we’re bouncing about happy, or happy about how the first 12 games have gone. We know it needs to be better and, ultimately, the gaffer does not deserve this.

“It’s not all sunshine and daisies - and we know that. There’s a lot more lows in football than highs and it’s hard to win a game of football.

“When you win, I think you should enjoy it because it really is hard. There are 11 people against you doing the exact same thing and we just need to try and stick together and, ultimately, perform better.”

For all the experience and drive you’ll find in the first team group at Hibs, there was a distinct lack of what you might call on-field aggro yesterday. If players were calling each other out for doing the wrong things, it was being done very quietly.

“I think we need a wee bit more of that, if I’m honest,” admitted Cadden, adding: “I think you need a wee bit of bad side about you.

“Sometimes you don’t need that. Just run more than your opponent, or whatever. I think we could do a wee bit more of that and demand more of each other.

“We’ve got a lot of experienced players. I feel as if I am one of the experienced guys as well. Obviously, I’ve been around football a long time and I know when it is not good enough and I know when performances have been good.

“But, as I said, that first half, and then second-half we huffed and puffed a wee bit, but it’s just not good enough for this size of club to be where we are just now.”

Admitting he always expected his late ‘equaliser’ to be ruled out by VAR after it hit Dwight Gayle in an offside position, Cadden said: “I knew it had hit Gayley, to be honest, I thought it hit his hand at the time. But even if it hits him, I think it’s still going in.

“But, at the end of the day, it’s not excusable for the first, whatever, 90 minutes. It’s a bit raw after the game. But I’ll watch the game probably.

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“My missus will shout at me, but I need to. I feel like that’s what you need to do. You need to look at your performance individually first and then look at it as a collective.”

One of the most worrying aspects of yesterday’s game was the sense of apathy, of expecting nothing better and being almost too disgusted to care, among supporters who left long before Cadden had briefly teased the remaining crowd into hoping for the best. Those who stayed to the bitter end had their show of faith applauded by players. Well, most players.

“I feel like I always applaud the fans no matter the result because, at the end of the day, they are spending their money to come and watch us play,” said Cadden. “I’m sure fans won’t be happy. I know things are expensive these days as well, so they are spending to come and see us, and we are not performing. We are not giving it back to them and that’s, ultimately, not good enough for this football club.”