Hibs fans right to make feelings known as new boys get lesson in expectations

David Gray and Dylan Levitt congratulating the Kelty players at full-time. | SNS Group

Welcome to the show. Audience participation is not always positive in nature. But that’s the flip side of all that adulation just waiting to be unleashed, should expectations be met.

None of the new faces recruited by Hibs in the summer window, so far, will have expected to be applauded off the plastic pitch following yesterday’s Premier Sports Cup loss to Kelty Hearts in the Kingdom of Fife. No professional footballer reaches the senior ranks without being knocked about by a bit of criticism.

But the venom contained in some of the comments, as audible and noticeable to players as it was justified, given the failings exposed by League One opposition, might have come as a slight surprise to new recruits who had only experienced success and adulation to date. Aye, lads, this what happens when you DON’T perform.

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“We are at a massive club, and you have to take pride every time you step on the pitch,” is how Dylan Levitt, now a veteran courtesy of his brutal first season in Hibs colours, put it, the Welsh midfielder adding: “The new boys know that and, when you come to these places, you need to be at the highest level.

“It doesn’t matter who you are playing against, it’s about getting three points and down the road. It’s not a great day for the new signings as well, asking them to go through that. It was very frustrating and disappointing.

“We didn’t move the ball quick enough, but we created a few chances and maybe if we could have taken them, it would have gone a lot different. But as soon as you concede, you are chasing it and then time-wasting and everything comes into it. Overall, it wasn’t good enough from the team.

“In the first half, we hit the post and then again in the second half. It seemed like we were getting in the right positions, but we just weren’t clinical enough.”

Levitt was an easy target for criticism in some quarters yesterday, the midfielder’s measured approach at odds with demands for greater urgency. For one of half a dozen players dropped into the starting XI, surely playing at a proper match tempo – the pop-pop-pop passing that everyone loves to see – is made more difficult by a lack of game time, right?

Refusing to cut himself any slack, Levitt insisted: “That comes from training day and day out. You have to be up to the levels of starting games no matter what. It comes from training.

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“I don’t have a preference where I play, it’s just to be out there, getting on the ball and being able to play forward and keep the team ticking. I have enjoyed working with the gaffer from day one. He laid down what he wants from everyone and had a real good three or four weeks now. I am enjoying it.

“The boys know that wasn’t good enough and we will review it on Monday. We will go through the game and pick out bits, but as a whole that’s not good enough for this club. Moving forward, we need to take positives from the first two cups games into Wednesday and Saturday.”