Hibs have 'don't be satisfied with one win' message hammered home as Hearts victory tees up Aberdeen test
Easter Road side still seeking first league win under new gaffer
Staying hungry and being willing to do the dirty work. In football, at almost any level, that’ll get you there 90 per cent of the time. The rest is where the magic happens.
As Hibs head north to face Aberdeen in a tea-time kick-off at Pittodrie today, with Marink Reedijk still seeking his first league win as manager but undoubtedly energised by events at Hampden on Sunday, the visitors have put themselves in a position to turn their season around. Whether they follow up their Premier Sports Cup semi-final win over Hearts by soaring to victory or slumping to disappointment will tell us plenty about the durability of the rebuild being carried out by Reedijk.
Marink Reedijk built undefeated season in Belgium
The Dutch coach, who led SK Beveren to an undefeated title-winning season in Belgium’s second tier last season, should at least be something of an expert on developing the relentless approach Hibs will need to dig themselves out of their rut at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership – and inch towards a more interesting/rewarding area of the table. He makes the secrets to building momentum sound almost simple.
"Consistency, independent of the highs if you win everything, but also on the lows if you have a little bit of a bad spell,” said Reedijk. “I think consistency in your performance brings you closer to the results you want.
"And it's really, really hard to have the consistency constantly, especially if you have those highs. But good teams, and I think we are a good team, can make sure that they can be consistent.
"It's always the combination of factors. But in this sense, it's also like keeping the hunger in order to get again a win, get again the dirty work done.
“Don't be satisfied with one win. It's about continuous development of the way of playing, but also continuous attitude towards another match. “
Assessing the impact of the Premier Sports Cup semi-final win over his team’s nearest and dearest rivals, the manager added: “It's throughout the whole club, I think. And this is really important to me, that also the fans have something to celebrate, had something to celebrate, but also to be proud of, not only in the result, I think, but also in the way we brought ourselves to the fore in the two phases the game had.
"And this is, I believe, a very positive thing. But also that the players recognise we can do both. And that can-do is, for me, the most important thing of the match."
Demanding boss in ‘never satisfied’ admission
Happy to let players off the leash on Sunday night, even granting them Monday off despite the normal MD+1 requirement to report to HTC, Reedijk was encouraged when he heard senior figures like Joe Newell immediately stressing the need to carry the feelgood factor from a derby win into the next series of games.
"Exactly,” he said, adding: “And that's important. And you see this also during the training sessions and the last days.
“The focus was after the match on celebrating. But then when we came back into the building here to have our first training session, the focus was there and the intensity was there. So that's really important to see. And then you need people like that in order to steer also the guys in the right direction.
"I'm never satisfied, so we need to keep pushing. You will face different opponents, different ways of playing, different moments in a season, different atmospheres in stadiums, different weather conditions sometimes.
"So we need to be ready for everything and try to build a certain consistency and a certain hunger to do every time. So if it is hard, so if it is someone else, that we have the same hunger for every match to win. That we believe that we can do this in the first place, but also have the hunger and the appetite to take them home."
Looking more adept at putting the Reedijk game plan into effect, Hibs – who will be without starting left back Adam Mayor and Scotland centre-half Grant Hanley – are developing into a team intent on making life uncomfortable for opponents, midfielder Callum Wright explaining the gaffer’s philosophy by saying: “I think it is about controlling the game. So that's with the ball, he puts us in positions where we can ask questions of the opposition. Depending on their answers to our questions, is sort of what we can do with the ball then.
“And then we're in positions that if we do lose the ball, or the opposition have a good press, we're in positions to win the ball back almost immediately, or at least make it hard for them. It’s completely different to what we were doing, but it's good.”