Hibs misery-to-happiness adventure mirrored by Dons disintegration - time to reel in Thelin's floundering side
Victory on Saturday would put Hibees just two points behind early leaders
Don’t look down. Mind that gap to the teams further up the ladder. And, above all, remain focused on the 90-minute challenge presented by this weekend’s opponents – an Aberdeen team whose rise-and-fall campaign resembles nothing so much as a negative copy of Hibernian’s own misery-to-happiness adventure in season 2024-25.
A home victory at Easter Road on Saturday would see David Gray’s men move to within two points of the fourth-placed Dons, whose days as early ‘title contenders’ now seem like a blurry memory to supporters suffering through an astonishing 13-game winless run in the Scottish Premiership. With managerless Motherwell hosting Celtic on Sunday, there’s also a chance of Hibs leapfrogging the Steelmen to finish the weekend sitting fifth in the table.
When you consider the now-familiar and oft-quoted stat about Jimmy Thelin’s side temporarily moving 28 points clear of Hibs before Rocky Bushiri’s dramatic late equaliser in the 3-3 draw in Edinburgh on November 26, the fact that Gray’s men have closed so rapidly on the disintegrating Dons speaks volumes about their respective fortunes since that date. As the gaffer himself agrees. Up to a point.
“Yeah, it does,” he said, adding: “I think it really demonstrates how far we’ve come as a team. But it also demonstrates the league in general this year.
“I think we're still only five points off 11th place. So anyone from 11th all the way to third will be thinking top six, for starters. I'll always say top six - make sure we get the top six, firstly, and then start to move through there.
“And even St Johnstone, I know they're cut away at the moment. Their mindset right now will be to survive, but at the same time, they win the next game or the next two games, they're right back in it as well. So it demonstrates how quickly it can turn, and I've said that many times now.
“We’ve demonstrated how quick it can turn in a positive way. Aberdeen demonstrated how positive it could be at the start of the season for them. They started flying but are obviously going through adversity at the moment.
“You have to guard against reading too much into their form; that doesn't mean anything going into this game. We're not taking any of that into consideration of where they've been, where they are, everything else.
“They're a very good side, clearly. They have very good players that have demonstrated that they can perform at a very high level this season. They are going through a tough time at the moment - but we won't be taking anything lightly.
“Our full focus is on, if we win the game, potentially we can go above the team above us. And like you say, you go three points closer to Aberdeen if you can beat them, which is a good place to be.”
Aberdeen have taken just four points from the last 39 available and, since that draw at Easter Road, have looked a team completely devoid of confidence. Oh Rocky, what did you do to these guys, eh?
Hibs, by contrast, took 21 points from the next 30 on the board in the 10 games following that late comeback. And suffered just one defeat, a far from demoralising performance in the loss to the champions at Celtic Park, along the way.
During that run, arguably the best performance of the lot came in last month’s 3-1 win at Pittodrie. Despite going a goal down to the Granite City side, the visitors ended up winning with something approaching comfort – probably the first really big result of Gray’s time as coach, even if it would be eclipsed by a Boxing Day defeat of Hearts at Tynecastle just a few days later.
“Yeah, we were good at Pittodrie,” said Gray, the former club captain adding: “I thought we played really well.
“At this stage of the season as well, you play that many teams so often. This is obviously the third time we've played them. And we've played them quite recently, the three times as well. Yeah, in November, December and now because we had one rescheduled game.
“So, the third time you play each other, naturally, both coaches will look at what went right, what went wrong, how can we improve, what caused us problems, how can we cause them problems? And they’ve signed a few players as well.
“So, you need to start to look at the new players and where they play and do they play, how do they add to their group? So, making sure the players are ready with everything they need to know and put a game plan together that we feel gives us the best possible chance of winning the game.”
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