Hibs boss Gray sets target heading into January window as new Black Knights guru gets busy
Gaffer warns players haven’t ‘turned corner’ after second league win
Hibs boss David Gray says his team need to make up another “six or seven points” on their nearest rivals heading into the January window – to make life easier for new head of recruitment Garvan Stewart. And the gaffer has warned his players that a madcap draw at home to Aberdeen and a comfortable win over Motherwell at Fir Park doesn’t mean they’ve turned the corner in a season of woe.
Gray, who takes his team to Celtic Park to face the champions tomorrow afternoon, is pleased that Hibs lifted themselves off the foot of the Scottish Premiership table last weekend. With leading Black Knights analyst Stewart in the building and planning to strengthen the squad next month, the rookie head coach is staying focused on giving the new scouting guru something to build on.
“The work never stops basically in that department, trying to always look to see if you can strengthen on ins and outs,” said Gray. “We've got a lot of players that will attract interest as well so it's probably about being proactive as much as you can. We've always got plans in place for what we'd like to achieve - but at the same time you can only do what we can do.
“My full focus between now and until the window opens is get us in the best position we can be and trying to turn around our league position. Then the hard work that's been going on continuously will be looked at come January.
“I think my full focus is on changing our league position. You look at the number of games we have in a short period of time, and I’ve said for a number of weeks now how quickly the narrative can change. We've obviously got a real difficult test this weekend - but a couple of wins and you put yourself right back up there
“We are, six, seven points behind where we need to be, which is a couple of wins. We've got opportunities to go and do that, we know we’ve not won enough games to this point, but we need to be looking at how quickly we can turn that around.
“Obviously we've got a chance at the weekend to try and change that, a real difficult test but there's a lot of fixtures coming up where my full focus is on changing the league position. I think there's constant communication with the recruitment department about strengthening and what we'd like to do, but my full focus is on results and performances at the moment.”
Highlighting his team’s burst of scoring – six goals in their last two games – as key to the changing mood around East Mains, Gray said: “I would be much more concerned had we not been creating chances all season or, you know, we're scrambling around wondering where the result was going to come from. We did truly believe it was going to turn.
“But that's not us completely turned the corner. We know where we are; it doesn't stop doing the things we're working on.
“When you talk about pressure and expectation, I think Celtic are the team that are expected to go and win so they have to deal with that. We just have to look at ourselves and build on what we've done at the weekend, take the confidence from that and go and believe you can get a result.
“It's a real difficult place to go, the players have already been there, great side, top players, top coach so it's a daunting task, we know that. But you have to believe you can go and get something.”
Hyeokkyu Kown is unavailable under the terms of his loan agreement with Celtic, but Jordan Obita returns from suspension. Young prospect Rudi Molotnikov has picked up a groin strain that will see him miss out, while long-term injury victims Kieron Bowie and Marvin Ekpiteta complete the casualty report from HTC.