Hibs gaffer makes points target admission as Gray crunches numbers in pursuit of top six spot - and beyond

He won’t give the number away. Because making the top six should be just the start for Hibs.

David Gray certainly has a points total in mind when it comes to finishing on the right side of the Scottish Premiership’s great divide come the seasonal split in ten games’ time. Even if he’s not willing to get drawn into specifics, basic logic – and a little look at the history books – shows that teams usually need between 42 and 44 points to make the cut after 33 games.

So can Hibs take the 14-15 points needed to secure their spot in the top half of the table, come weekend of April 12/13? With 21 points from their last ten league fixtures, it certainly looks possible.

“We've got a sort of idea of what points we would need come the split to ensure we're in the top six,” said Gray, who underlined his belief in this team’s ability to climb even higher as he added: “And we need to try and get there as quickly as we can.

“The quicker you get to there, better your chances of being in that top six – and the more chance you have of catching the teams in front of you. But making sure we’re comfortable on the right side of the split is our first priority.

“We’ve managed to take in 21 points in our last ten games. Obviously, that’s fantastic. But we need to keep moving forward.

“It's a big ask to do that again, 21 points from 10, when you look at the league itself at the moment, the history with everybody beating everyone, that’s how tight it is. Every fixture is going to be really difficult, purely because of how tight it is and everything's still up for grabs.

“So in terms of everyone looking at that top six, how many teams do you think can still get in the top six? I think virtually everyone will look at themselves and say: ‘We've still got a chance.’

“The closer you get to that split, that'll become really, really tight. Then you consider third and fourth and what that looks like.

“The more games you can win earlier, then you start to claw the teams in front of you. Our focus is still catching the team in front.”

Hibs dragged themselves off the foot of the table with a run of six wins and three draws from their last 10 league games. And Gray says a lot of the momentum they built was down to focusing entirely on climbing a single place at a time.

“That had to be our approach early in the season, because we were always obviously struggling with a lack of points, didn't pick up enough, found ourselves at the bottom of the league,” he said. “And when you're at the bottom of the league, you can't look too high, you can't still be thinking we need to get to there.

GET THE LATEST HIBS NEWS DIRECTLY TO YOUR EMAIL INBOX WITH OUR FREE NEWSLETTER SERVICE

“It's just quick gains, quick goals, let's just catch the team in front of us all the time. And right now we're sitting sixth.

“We’ve got an away game against Ross County this weekend, which will be really difficult. They've hit a bit of form themselves, it's always difficult going up there, so I expect a real tough game there.

“But there’s an opportunity if we win the game. We're two points behind Motherwell, so we can potentially go above them. That's the challenge every week. You're just going to have to try and tick them off.”