'Needless' red card and 'self-inflicted' derby defeat leave Hibs boss David Gray fuming as Hearts bag win
Three sides of Easter Road empty long before full-time as fans show discontent
Hibs boss David Gray slammed red-card villain Jack Iredale for the “needless” series of comic-cuts offences that contributed to a “self-inflicted” derby defeat to Hearts at Easter Road. The Australian defender, an early substitute for Jordan Obita, was booked late in the first half and then shown a second yellow with Hibs having fought back from 2-0 down to get within a goal of the visitors.
Hearts went onto beat the ten men 3-1, securing a third consecutive derby win for the first time since 2012. Hibs have now tasted defeat in four of the past five encounters with their city rivals.
Iredale red card leaves Gray bewildered
Iredale was shown a yellow card not long after coming on for wiping out Hearts fullback Jordi Altena. And he saw red just as Hibs chased an equaliser on the back of their thunderous second-half rally, booked a second time for a lunge on Calvin Miller after his own horrible back pass caused chaos in the home defence.
Gray said: “I can't defend or really understand the multitude of errors that come for the self-inflicted red card. It makes it extremely difficult for the 10 players that remain on the pitch.”
Asked whether Iredale had put himself under pressure by picking up that early yellow, the gaffer declared: “One hundred per cent. The first booking, for a senior player to go and do that is needless. Needless. And he knows that.
“It's a mistake, players make mistakes, human beings make mistakes. But the message at half-time was make sure you don't get sent off. Nothing silly, we've been in this movie before, self-inflicted.
“I've not really watched it (the second booking) back but my recollection of it at the moment was we take a quick throw in, we misplaced the pass by four or five yards, nearly scoring an own goal. And then a poor touch once the ball gets flipped into an area, when it could maybe just go into the stand and just make sure one mistake doesn't become two mistakes, never mind three mistakes become four mistakes and a yellow card, a second yellow.
“That's the thing, I think it's very self-inflicted at that point. But it certainly took all the momentum out of the game for us, which was definitely with us at that point.”
Deserved to be 2-0 down at half-time
Admitting his team had been outplayed as they trailed 2-0 at half-time, Gray said: “Our first-half performance wasn't where it needed to be. Everything you want to do and how you want to start any game of football, never mind a derby, I don't think we've done well enough.
“Never won enough second balls, didn't compete enough in certain areas, lost really poor goals, avoidable goals. But still created chances in terms of a big chance to go 1-1, as poor as we were, knowing we can be so much better.
“And then lose a really poor goal from a set piece. Give away a really soft free kick. I think it summed us up probably in the first half, where I thought we were second best, so deservedly going in behind at half time.
“Made a few changes, although we could have changed anybody. It wasn't as if it was picking on an individual that I took off, it was more just an end of message. I never changed shape, I just said what needs to change here, which is a bit more fight, a bit more desire.
“I certainly got that reaction at half-time. Started the second half really well, got on the front foot, scored a good goal.
“At that point, I felt all the momentum was with us. You could feel that in the stadium.
“There was only one team, in my opinion, that was then going to go on and score the next goal, if another goal would come. You can never say that goal is coming, but the momentum was definitely with us.
“When we then conceded the third goal, whether you had eight men on the pitch, that wasn't good enough defensively. He skips past three players really, really softly, really poor.
“Then it’s credit to the players that remained on the pitch, because it would have been really easy to chuck it at that point. Not chuck it, but let the game get away from you.
“You're down to 10 men, you feel sorry for yourself, you're 3-1 down against your rivals. But we were the team that kept pushing and kept trying and kept creating chances.
“We scored a goal that got chopped off, I need to see that again, I'm not too sure why. On top of that, we created four or five chances again – and we didn't take our chances. You've heard me say that in the last couple of weeks.”