Hibs defence in focus - can collective approach prevent individual errors?

Primal scream -Josh Campbell is every Hibs fan as he reacts to Simon Murray’s equaliser at Easter Road on Saturday. | SNS Group

Individual mistakes are rarely the fault of one person alone. In a game as co-operative and chaotic as football, there’s always an element of collective responsibility.

As David Gray strives to eradicate the errors that have undermined his early days as Hibs boss, then, he’s not prone to finger pointing. He is, in fact, more inclined towards putting his hand up in admission that, perhaps not surprisingly, this still-new team hasn’t quite mastered the gaffer’s approach to defending.

How much difference can there be, you might ask, between Gray’s out-of-possession plans for the final third and those of his predecessor(s)? In a sport with so many variables, the permutations run into the hundreds …

From having his mind blown by Shaun Maloney’s attention to detail, to adapting to mix ‘n’ match approaches to zonal and man marking, the current head coach has been a backroom contributor to a couple of different models. His job now is getting everyone to buy into his personal vision of protecting the penalty box.

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“The same things are coming up at times,” admitted Gray, the rookie boss adding: “We’re not shying away from that.

“And I think everyone will have their own approach. That’s the benefit of working under four different managers here.

“They’ve all had different ideas of how you defend the box, how you defend the goal, body shape, all these things from a defensive point of view. Far more than I ever thought about when I was a player.

“Under Shaun Maloney and Valerio (Zuddas), they had detail on every single time you were defending the box. They believed you could coach near enough every scenario.

“That blew my mind. Because I just thought it was about a good player making good decisions, knowing where to be, stopping crosses, whatever that might be, just putting yourself in a position to defend.

“But Shaun was very structured. When the ball was in certain areas, you could be here, or you could be there.

“There is a balance within that because you don’t want to make it robotic. But you have principles of how you defend.

“That means you have accountability. As long as everyone understands how you want to defend a cross, for example, if you’ve got a set of principles applying to that situation, and everybody knows it and understands that, whether it’s man marking, zonal, at least then you have accountability.

“If you’re not in that area, but we’ve all agreed on that and worked on that, when you look back at it, a defender can see that they were in the wrong position. Or if it was man marking, they can see if they dropped their man. Whatever it might be.

“I think it just helps everyone to work out what is expected. We’re all on the same page.

“Lee Johnson was completely different to what Shaun wanted. Nick Montgomery was different again, more of a hybrid of zonal and man marking.

“Some players here have been through three Hibs managers with three different approaches. Rocky Bushiri is one. Lewis Miller’s had a bit of it as well.

“So they’ve got a bit of thinking: ‘Are we doing this right?’ But I have my own way I want to do things, and the more repetition the better.

“Marvin Ekpiteta and Warren O’Hora will have had different coaches. Warren has played a lot of time in a back three, so he has to adjust the distances to defending in a back four, which comes from repetition, just getting used to exactly what we want.

“We don’t need to highlight individuals all the time, because collectively we can be better. Sometimes it’s about the players in front of them.

“Either we’re getting far too exposed because the middle of the pitch has been vacated or a wide player isn’t tracking his runner. Something as simple as that creates a knock-on effect on decisions all over the pitch.

“And they’ve probably lost a bit of confidence, as well. But we need to get back to doing it properly as quickly as we can.”

Like all managers, Gray gets umpteen chances to review his team’s performances. Unlike some, he’s not always using video review sessions as a chance to point out obvious howlers.

The former fullback explained: “We have video analysis. We have individual meetings. And the analysis after the game is great – but you already know the result.

“So it’s easy for me to say: ‘You should have done this, you should have done that …’ I like to ask: ‘In that situation, why did you make that decision? How were you feeling at the time?’

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“Because it’s very easy for me to pause it and say: ‘Why are you there?’ And they can tell me it was because of X, Y and Z …

“Then you start to understand why these decisions are being made. And then that’s maybe on me.

“Maybe I’ve not given them enough information. Or I need to be clearer in certain situations. That might not be the case, but you analyse it a little differently, because you do whatever it takes to keep clean sheets and establish yourself as a really strong defensive unit

“I’m not making excuses. But we are getting punished for every mistake at the moment. And sometimes it’s not just one mistake. There are three or four leading to each goal. And mistakes happen.

“It’s about repetition on the training pitch, working together all the time. It’s still a new group. Just getting to know exactly what I want from them, from a defensive point of view – and delivering that, while learning from mistakes.”