Hibs boss makes performance admission despite Aberdeen win

Montgomery praises Hibs' star man following two goal win over Aberdeen

It was the third successive win for Hibs today as Dylan Vente and Will Fish both scored to give the Easter Road side a 2-0 win over Aberdeen. The snow may have been falling but no Hibs fan was deterred as they celebrated an entertaining and oftentimes nerve wracking performance end with three points secured. 

One man in particular stood out for Nick Montgomery’ side. David Marshall produced a stellar performance to ensure he kept yet another clean sheet with the match being summed up by the saving of Bojan Miovski’s penalty. 

The Hibees now sit fifth in the league, just one point behind St Mirren as they head into an exceptionally demanding schedule with Celtic on Wednesday and Livingston next Saturday. 

Speaking after the win, Hibs’ boss Montgomery was full of praise for many of his players but was under no allusion that it was not a perfect performance with much work needed to be done in order to keep up the winning streak. 

“I’d say (Aberdeen) were good today, and I’ll say that it wasn’t our prettiest performance”, Montgomery admitted. 

“It’s important we get some momentum. It’s two clean sheets in three games. We conceded a late goal last week, but three wins on the bounce is good.”

That’s three wins with many key members of the squad still out of action. Montgomery added: “You can see the squad depth has been tested, we have 16-year-old Rory Whittaker making his home debut. And for a 16-year-old starting a game of that magnitude he showed massive promise for the future.

“We have quite a few young players in the squad and hopefully we can get some more players back in January and February.”

The 38-year-old David Marshall was arguably Hibs’ match-winner and was kept active far more than he would have liked, saving the ball on the line on numerous occasions. Speaking of the Scottish glovesman, Montgomery said: “We have to thank Davie Marshall, he is a top class goalkeeper.

“I said that when I came to the club and nothing has changed. He stood strong, had some big moments.I thought the penalty save summed up his performance.

“It’s vitally important you have good characters in the team and you’re not going to get more experienced than David. He’s had a lot of stick in the past but he’s a top class goalkeeper and he showed that today.

It was also an afternoon to remember for the Dutch football star Dylan Vente who was finally able to get back on the scoresheet after a nine game drought. Opening up the scoring in the first 15 minutes, the 24-year-old netted a cross from Martin Boyle to send Hibs’ fans wild with excitement.

When asked about the importance of securing a much needed goal, Montgomery said of his centre forward: “I said to Dylan last week, I was unaware it had been 9 games since he’d scored a goal because he works so hard for the team, created lots of assists. 

"But I think he deserved that today and breaks a little bit of a cycle and now he’s not got that on his mind because we know he can score, know he can assist and I thought he worked really hard today."

With a clash with Celtic at Parkhead just around the corner, Monty is under no misconception about what's ahead. "(It’s a) big game on Wednesday. But we will dust ourselves down today, recover, make sure we are well prepared going into Wednesday’s game."