Hibs boss addresses link to EFL Championship side with straight two-word answer as Gray tackles 'speculation'

David Gray has laughed off links to EFL Championship club Swansea City – and reassured Hibs fans that he remains locked into his mission at Easter Road. And the young manager, who got a vote of confidence to keep him in situ as he made a disastrous start following his summer promotion, admits he finds it funny to be mentioned as a potential market mover so soon after coming under pressure.

Gray was named as a potential target for Swansea, who sacked Luke Williams last month, in reports yesterday. The Easter Road boss is flying high in terms of credibility at the moment after presiding over an incredible run of form to turn his team’s season around.

Having bumped along in or around the relegation zone for the first few months, Hibs have now lost just one of their last 18 fixtures, putting together a 15-game unbeaten run in all competitions. And their league record of 13 straight defeat is something that hasn’t been achieved since 1949, when the club’s legendary Famous Five were in their pomp.

Gaffer ‘fully committed’

When the interest was mentioned to him and it was suggested he might have ambitions to go far in management, Gray admitted: “Yeah, I am ambitious, but I think it's just a funny game, isn't it? You think back to this season on the whole and where we've been and the line of work we're in.

“Speculation, people speculating about am I going to stay in a job at the start of the season. How quickly things change when you put a good run together and then there's other people talking about your job in another way, in a positive way.

“So, listen, nothing changes from my point of view. I'm 100% focused on what I'm doing because I've got the hardest thing in the world to try and do at the weekend, which is to try and get a game plan to go to Celtic Park and win.

“That is all that's on my mind at the minute. I'm fully committed to what I'm doing here - and I'm 100% behind what we're trying to do here moving forward.”

Scottish Cup ambition

Asked if there might come a time when he’d be tempted away from his boyhood heroes, Gray - looking to reach the Scottish Cup semi-finals with a win at Celtic Park on Sunday - said simply: “Well, we just need to keep winning games of football. That's all I'm interested in at the minute and then if something then comes, whenever that does come, if it does come, if it doesn't come, I've already demonstrated already this season how quickly it can turn the other way.”

Just this week, Hibs owner Ian Gordon revealed that he’d never considered getting rid of Gray in the midst of that early-season crisis, saying: “No. I mean it was obviously not the start that we had envisioned.

“But we knew Dave being new into management and the evolution of the squad and the new signings coming in and the timings of those signings. So that there was going to be a period of time for Dave to get to grips with everything.

“But honestly, anyone that knows Dave and how he is as a person, it's someone we always believed in. And the most important thing that we were seeing was the togetherness down at HTC.

“Even during that run, I think in years past when runs happened, you never felt that togetherness. There's been a new chapter down at HTC and that culture and togetherness that Malky Mackay and Dave have put in place has been vital for this.”

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