The Hibs 'excuse' David Gray refuses to deploy as Easter Road boss hones in on what needs fixed

David Gray says the stop-start nature of Hibs’ season won’t be used as a crutch as the head coach looks to give form a jolt.

The Easter Road club are coming off the second international break 10th in the Premiership table, following a defeat to Motherwell last time out. They travel to Dundee United this weekend in search of climbing up the league ladder and away from its danger zone.

Included with the two international fortnight stints, Hibs have also had a free weekend due to the Premier Sports Cup quarter-finals. It’s meant that there’s been plenty of free time for Gray to work with players who have been at HTC throughout the multitude of breaks.

Despite their games being broken up, the head coach says it’s not something he will be pointing out all too often, with the club having won one of their seven league matches so far. He and his players know what needs to be rectified. Gray said: "It's not an excuse because it's the same for all the managers in the league. I'm sure if you ask them all, they'll probably be frustrated, from a club point of view.

“There is so many internationals and it's stop-start. But at the same time, for the players to go and represent their countries is the greatest achievement for them. So, you'd never want to discourage them to go and do it.

"But selfishly for me, you'd rather have your players here all the time and working with them all the time and playing regularly week in, week out. So it has been a bit stop-start. But as I said, it's not an excuse. We now know the situation we're in and we know what lies ahead of us and what we need to do to fix it."

One player who enjoyed his international week was Lewis Miller. The right-back netted his first goal for Australia against China and provided the cross for an own goal in a draw with Japan. Gray now wants his Socceroos star to maintain those levels with Hibs.

He said: “Especially on the international stage for him because he's been through a bit of a tough time there as well. So it was great for him to see him do that. He'll take loads of confidence from it. He got an assist as well when he was away, playing against a top team in Japan when he was up against it. He's a real good winger, so he had to be on the top of his game for that.

"Hopefully he can come back full of confidence knowing that he's played on that big stage and done well. He needs to then come back here and make sure that he's fit and ready, if called upon, to try and put that right at the weekend as well for us.”

He’d ideally want all of his players around the group at all times. Gray insists that he would never begrudge a star the chance to pull on his national team colours. Gray added: "Well as a player I never managed to get in the national team, so I was always one of the extras that had to do all the running here!

“But as a coach, it's different because on the one hand you want your players to go away and represent the country and do really well, and the whole time you're just hoping that nobody picks up any injuries, they come back healthy and ready to go for the games you're playing. The frustration is when they go on the other side of the world and maybe don't get any minutes at all, but they're still preparing for games and missing out on maybe a bank of training that they would have got here.

“But as I've already said, the one thing you would never want, I would never encourage players not to go, I think that's the pinnacle of your career and I understand why everybody wants to go and do it. It is a fine balance between what the ideal scenario would be, having the players here the whole time, of course it would be.

“I think you need to take every opportunity you get with the players on the grass. I think because when you have got games, you can only do a certain amount in training all the time because everything is geared up towards peaking at match day. So when you have got a bit of a break in the fixture list, you can focus on different areas of the game.

“The other issue is your international players are usually key players at the club at times because that's why they're representing countries all over the world. So they're not always getting the same message as regular as the ones that have already been here. So then it's that balance of what you're trying to work on for the next game and how long they've been here and can they get up to speed as quick as they can."