Hibs boss explains why Josh Doig deserves new deal. "He is now a first team regular and it’s important the club doesn’t take advantage of that"

Hibs manager Jack Ross says he enjoys working with players like Josh Doig, and Kevin Nisbet and watching them develop. Photo by Mark Scates / SNS GroupHibs manager Jack Ross says he enjoys working with players like Josh Doig, and Kevin Nisbet and watching them develop. Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group
Hibs manager Jack Ross says he enjoys working with players like Josh Doig, and Kevin Nisbet and watching them develop. Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group
Seeing Josh Doig develop into a first team regular, Hibs manager Jack Ross says it is only fair that the teenager’s contribution to what could prove to be the club’s best league finish in his lifetime is reflected in a new contract.

The Easter Road outfit are keen to extend the 18-year-old defender’s current deal, which runs until 2023 and was signed before he embarked on a stand-out debut season in the first team.

“With Josh, his deal is for a development squad player and an out and out development squad player at that, but he is now a first team regular and I think it’s important that the club doesn’t take advantage of that. I think that is only appropriate. The contract has to reflect his contribution and that is where we are trying to get to.

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“I am quietly confident that we can progress that because I think he feels he is in a good place and he feels that he is progressing.

“Sometimes things are so fast-paced and people are in a rush to get where they want to get as quickly as they can but I don’t really sense that impatience in Josh. I think he is in a good place in terms of where he is as a person and where his football is at for the moment.

“All being well he has a lot of years left in the game and he has the potential to fulfil all his ambitions but that doesn’t all happen straight away and it is about finding the right place to develop. At the moment he is playing regularly at one of the top clubs in the country, at the top end of the table, and that is certainly not a bad place to be at this stage of his football career.”

The Leith gaffer has been impressed with Doig’s progress this term after he forced his way into the reckoning with an impressive pre-season showing and with big names like Arsenal and Manchester City already keeping tabs, Ross says agreeing a longer-term contract would also be prudent for the club.

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“I’m conscious that players need to have contracts that align with where they sit at the club, but, of course. I think for us it gives us more protection in terms of trying to keep the people we want.”

A player with pace, energy, the ability to tackle and whip in dangerous crosses, to help in defence and in attack, it is his resilience and willingness to absorb information that elevates him even further according to his manager.

Like his gaffer Doig had to fight for a second chance after his promising youth career stuttered. While Ross found a route back via junior football, Doig, who was released by Hearts less than two years ago, earned himself a fresh shot across the city and was willing to take on a loan spell at Queens Park in the second half of last season.

“If you are rejected, released, retired, whatever, as a footballer, it is no different from the guy who has worked in the same factory for 25 years and leaves or someone being made redundant. You are left wondering what you are going to do.”

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Doig, who bagged his first goal last weekend, has also coped with the normal highs and lows of a breakthrough season, showing impressive consistency. Working with the manager and staff, he also found a way to rebound when his form did drop off.

“He takes it all on board and he is a really, really good lad to work with and I think people can see that in the way he presents himself and speaks. I think he has an authenticity about him

“Going back to the psychology part of the job, earlier in the season when he came off at Celtic Park at halftime, [his ninth competitive first team appearance], he’d had a difficult first half against Jeremie Frimpong and we left him out for a couple of games after that. But I had a good chat with him.

“He had started to get a bit of stick online and that was a new experience for him. What I had done, though, was get Calvin [Charlton], one of the analysts to put together a profile kind of thing which looked at what he had already achieved this season. At that point he had played against James Tavernier, Scotty Arfield, Calum McGregor, Scott Brown, Johnny Hayes and we rhymed off all these established Premiership and international players and reminded him of how good a job he had done, the minutes played. We looked at all these performance indicators, giving him, in reality, a bit of a boost, reminding him of the venues he had played in, teams and players he had played against and one of the points I made to him was: ‘Where were you 6 months ago? Where were you 12 months ago? Where were you 18 months ago?’

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“You know, we very rarely pause to reflect; the focus is always on what’s next but I wanted him to stop, pause and reflect. I said: ‘okay, you are going through a wee sticky patch at the moment but look at what you have already done this season, look at what you had done prior to that. You have come back from being released and found another club, proved you are good enough for that club. Then you then came in and made an impression on me and came through to play first team football. All that in such a relatively short period of time. So, all those things show that you must have this thing we know is so important, resilience. We know he has maybe improved it through circumstance and the help he has had but I think he has a mindset that gives him a very good chance of having a top career.”

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