Hibs first-team players to get minutes as SPFL Reserve League kicks off

Hibs get their SPFL Reserve League campaign under way this week with a home game against Dundee United in which some Easter Road first-team players are expected to feature.

The first match of a nine-game season takes place at the Hibernian Training Centre at 2pm on Tuesday and represents the first competitive league fixture for the club’s development squad following a busy pre-season schedule and a defeat on penalties by Highland League outfit Brechin City in the SPFL Trust Trophy.

Academy Director Steve Kean confirmed that some senior players would be involved who hadn’t had much gametime for the first team, with striker Momodou Bojang and winger Jair Tavares likely to feature.

Newly-recruited goalkeeper Ryan Schofield could also get a chance of action following his loan arrival from Huddersfield Town last week while the likes of Jack Brydon, Emmanuel Johnson, and Kanayo Megwa might also be involved having turned out for the development squad in pre-season.

Kean said: “The lads are looking forward to getting into a more competitive environment.

"We had a great training day on Monday – we trained as a group, with everyone that will be involved and the lads all trained really well.

“There was a good atmosphere about the place. We planned out our set-plays, focused on our shape, and had a really good session with a good mixture of both senior lads and younger players.”

While the nature of the Reserve League makes it difficult to know exactly what sort of opposition will turn up, Kean expects the Tannadice outfit to send a team similarly made up of a mixture of senior and younger players.

Steve Kean is eager to see what the Hibs development side can do in the SPFL Reserve League

“There will be a good mixture of some of the younger lads who are coming through, as well as a few of the first-team boys,” he added.

“A few players haven’t had as many minutes as the manager would have wanted so we are giving them the opportunity to play.

“I imagine Dundee United will be in a similar situation to us so we don’t know exactly what squad we will come up against but it will be a good test for us either way.”

There hasn’t been an organised reserve league since the 2019/20 edition was brought to a halt by the Covid-19 pandemic but several clubs, including Hibs, had already pulled out in favour of following their own programme of matches.

The Easter Road side will also come up against Ayr United, Dundee, Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Livingston, Motherwell, and Queen of the South in league matches while in the Reserve Cup, with the competition split into regionalised groups, Hibs will play round-robin matches against both Dundee clubs, Dunfermline, Livingston, and Queen’s Park with the top two teams in each group advancing to the semi-finals.

Hibs will still play their 1875 Invitational matches against under-23 teams from England as well as competing in the SPFL Reserve League and Cup, with Kean eager for his young charges to experience matches against players they don’t know.

He said earlier this year: “Sometimes when we play teams here, everybody knows everybody else; the players know all the other players in the other team.

“Playing games against teams from England will really push our players in a different direction and make it a much more dynamic season for our development team.”