Hibs boss on board backing in crisis: 'It's not always my fault - but it is 100 per cent my responsibility.'

Responsibility runs through the recent history of Hibs like an elusive spectre from another dimension. Welcomed by a brave few, shunned by many and often mistaken for blame, it’s a concept scary enough to clear most boardrooms in the country when times get tough.

Yet David Gray insisting the buck stops with him provides only a partial picture of Hibernian’s current plight. There’s much, much more at stake here than merely the fate of one rookie head coach.

Which is possibly why Gray always expected the board to continue supporting him, when some were calling for yet another change, with that qualified vote of confidence issued in the wake of a humbling 2-1 home loss to St Mirren. He knows that they know. Speaks regularly enough to Ian Gordon and Bill Foley, or at the very least the latter’s representatives on earth, to feel confident that they understand just how deep the crisis runs.

Gray, addressing everything from his own future to Elie Youan’s angry clash with supporters during a heated lap of obligation by players immediately after the St Mirren loss, continually stresses the need for collective responsibility. He definitely feels uncomfortable when players talk about “letting the gaffer down” with performances and results.

“I think sometimes as a head coach it's not always directly my fault for something,” he acknowledged, the former Hibs captain quickly adding: “But it's 100 per cent my responsibility, the results. So, whatever way we go around that, there's no point in pointing fingers and blaming other people.

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“So, that's in the message that I've given to the players numerous times about saying they're letting me down. You just need to do your job first and foremost, so go in and do what you're good at, which is to be a professional football player. Don't worry about letting anybody down - and do that to the best of your ability.”

Fully aware that not all votes of confidence carry the same weight, Gray seems confident that the Hibs board fully understand the difficulties he inherited as a direct result of the club burning through four managers in less than three years, insisting: “I think everyone's accountable for that. Everyone's been very clear on that message as well and that's why I think everyone's working as hard as they can to change it.

“There’s been a lot of turnover over recent years. I've been here through all of that, but I still honestly believe everything that's been happening and all the decisions that have been made have always been to try and take the club forward for the right reasons.

“It was always going to be challenging. It will continue to be. If we get a couple of results, it doesn't go away. The pressures and demands at this football club and where we believe it can be, it takes a lot of success to do that. It's what everyone has at the back of their mind, what we’ve been working towards every single day.”

The difference between expectation and reality is where all of Scottish football’s greatest drama lies. Given the bloated nature of the squad and the utter chaos of recent recruitment policy, this really should have been a fallow year (yeah, hold the punchlines) for Hibs – a season of taking stock, letting contracts run down and allowing Foley’s Black Knight boys to prepare for a major revolution next summer.

Impossible, in the real world, of course. As Gray well knows.

“No definitely not,” he said, when it was suggested that Hibs couldn’t just write off any campaign as a rebuilding year, the former fullback adding: “I would never have signed up to that either, if I'm being honest, because of the demands and expectations I put on myself even, what I believe this club can achieve with the squad of players we've got and how we recruited in the summer as well as what was already here.”

Regular liaisons with sporting director Malky Mackay and chief executive Ben Kensell account for just some of Gray’s dealings with his superiors. He attends monthly board meetings, for starters. And has direct dealings with Bournemouth owner Foley’s people, who have just sent Cherries head of recruitment analysis Garvan Stewart north to address a key Hibs failing over recent seasons.

Expanding on his contact with the Black Knights decision makers, Gray said: “Yeah, not as consistently I would say … obviously Malky's in the building with me every single day, so I speak to Malky all the time, I speak to Ben all the time. And then wider than that you've always got the communication throughout the Black Knights and the Gordon family above as well.”

Hibernian's Elie Youan is guided away from a potential flashpoint with fans by team-mate Jordan Obita, under the watchful eye of match day security staff. | SNS Group

Gray, who takes his team to Dens Park for a tricky encounter with Dundee tomorrow evening, was asked about the ugly scenes involving Youan being led away by team-mates and security in the last home game, the boss saying: “I’ve not directly spoken to anyone about it. Everybody knows as football players you don't react to anything in the crowd, I think that's pretty much a given.

“I fully understand the noise when people are frustrated, understandably so. The message to the players is always to try and react in the best way possible, and just to try and be respectful to everyone round about you because you're always in the public eye as well, so it's not just reacting to that person, it's the example you're setting to every single person round about, young kids at the game, these are role models for some people.

“So you need to bear that in mind, and that's all part of being a professional football player. And that's something I don't really need to remind them of because it's been part of their journey ever since they started playing football.”