Hibs boss hopeful key trio will line up against Hamilton

Hibs boss Neil Lennon has revealed he had to take David Gray off after his match-winning goal against St Mirren to protect him from aggravating a leg injury.

However, he hopes the club skipper – along with winger Martin Boyle and centre half Paul Hanlon who both missed the trip to Paisley last weekend – will be back on Saturday as the Easter Road side bid to clock up a fourth straight Premiership win when they face hamilton at home. Gray missed the Betfred Cup penalty shoot-out defeat by Aberdeen having suffered a “dead leg” a few days earlier as Hibs defeated Dundee 3-0 at Dens Park. He returned to face the Buddies and claim his fifth goal of the season before being replaced by Steven Whittaker for the final 30 minutes.

Lennon explained: “David’s having a great season but he took another bang on his thigh just before half-time. You could see it was starting to toil just a little bit. He wants to go on and on, but we were just worried about how much damage it would do to him.

“Now he has a free week, hopefully it will settle down and we’ll have him, Paul and Martin back in the squad.”

Goal hero David Gray was substituted in Paisley

Boyle suffered bruising to the bone in his foot as Hibs won 3-2 against Kilmarnock although he was able to play in the next two matches with Dundee and the Dons. But, after the player underwent a scan, Lennon decided to take no chances by playing him at the Simple Digital Arena while Hanlon had also picked up a dead leg duing the cup tie with Aberdeen.

Lennon said: “We knew Martin had a bit of bone bruising and swelling. He might have made the bench but we did not want to take any chances, He is an important player for us. Saturday was too soon for Paul but hopefully they’ll be right for Saturday.”

Hamilton lost to Dundee last Saturday, the Tayside club picking up their first points of the season. Lennon, though, has warned his players they’ll again need to be at their best to take another three points against Accies.

He said: “Hamilton are a consistent Premiership team and they get good results at important times. We cannot take them lightly, and we won’t. But we want another three points. We are looking up the table. We’re into second place and, at this stage of the season, we have to be very, very pleased with that.”