Inside Hibs' preparations to face Rangers as Lee Johnson speaks on Paul Hanlon, Lewis Miller, and the need for resilience

Five players sidelined, managing Martin Boyle’s fitness, and juggling new recruits with the need to win games.

Hibs manager Lee Johnson has his hands full as he plots a return to winning ways, having tasted victory on the opening day of the Scottish Premiership season against St Johnstone and followed it up with a draw with city rivals Hearts and defeat by Livingston in West Lothian.

Rangers come calling on Saturday in this weekend’s lunchtime kick-off

"As we start to build our squad there's no way we're going to be able to peak this early. It's a big turnover of players who are very inexperienced at this level, which means we are going to have to be patient,” he explains.

"That doesn't mean the performances can't be aggressive and strong. The team selection on Saturday will be really positive to go and take the game to Rangers.”

Johnson knows all about the needle between Hibs and the Light Blues and insists the players recognise the importance of such matches.

"I’m learning about these mini-rivalries that seem to be particularly hot in Scotland – and you can understand it because everybody plays each other so much, distances aren’t far, there’s a lot of travelling supporters and there’s always incidents,” he adds.

“My focus has to be on getting the team right. But the lads are always aware of all those side stories and they have to understand that, because it’s important for the supporters.”

Lee Johnson takes training ahead of Hibs' match against Rangers

Johnson seems relaxed as he anticipates the visit of Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team but then he often does. He speaks about mentality, growth, and resilience, and believes the best way to build resilience is through experiences.

"You can’t expect a 19 or 20-year-old from Portugal to come over and have the same resilience that you’ve got at your age with what you’ve been through in your life,” he continues.

“They have to learn these lessons and then they have to come back stronger and when they do, and they win the next game and get man of the match, you’ve gone through adversity and come through it.

“We’ve already had that in three or four games at the start of the season and it’s going to come thick and fast. We need to keep working on it, trust it, trust the training.

Hibs are without a few players but Johnson believes his squad is still capable of competing

“We do a speaker series where guys come in. I think we’ve got a sniper coming in in a couple of weeks which will be good.

“It’s drawing on anybody and everybody to try and give these lads that little bit more resilience.

"In the past we’ve had the Red Arrows and the SAS come in. It’s a bit of a schooling. We have to create this growth mindset and this environment which is consistent."

He has highlighted the large turnover in his squad, and the current reliance on younger, less experienced players while several potential starters remain sidelined.

Defensive pair Lewis Miller, left, and Paul Hanlon are put through their paces at training

Johnson insists there’s no way his side can ‘peak this early’ as he stressed the importance of patience.

"I don't think we're anywhere near finished yet. When you think about Martin, we're still trying to build up his minutes,” he says.

"We've got some good players out injured who would be in the starting XI. I thought Paul Hanlon did well last week (in his first game back) apart from the goal, which was horrendous; he held his hands up for that.”

Asked if he could predict when his squad would be firing on all cylinders, Johnson brands it the ‘million-dollar question’.

"It’s very difficult to put an absolute timeline on that,” he concedes.

"Lewis Miller, to pluck someone out at random, has come over from Australia and it’s a new culture, a new training ground, different coaches, and he has to understand how others play.

"If you take all that into consideration, I think he got bogged down a little bit for a couple of weeks and over-thought everything.

“It’s been nice to see him get back to what he does best. So, you have all those micro stories with every individual and then there is the team-building process, which becomes really important.

"We spoke about this and where we felt we had started well in pre-season, the principles we worked on, and the pressing and stuff like that… it would be nice to almost have another pre-season to try to build everything in and try to get the fundamentals correct.”

Additional pre-seasons aside, Johnson was dismayed by his side’s failure to take anything from the match at Livingston. He had already spoken at length about what went wrong, and the positives to take, but expands on the reasons for his disappointment.

“We are doing everything we can to try to fast-track things: video analysis, analysing the performance of the individuals as well as the team stuff which we want to constantly drip feed. There’s philosophy-based stuff that we have already got in-house and we work on that every day in training.

"But, it does take time, it really does,” Johnson continues

"Do I think we could have had five points or even seven? Yeah, I do. That's why I was so disappointed at Livingston.

"I think we have threats and good control in midfield but I don't think we’ve been clinical enough in terms of our final ball or finishing and I think that;’s been evident in all our games so far.

“You need strikers to score goals, wingers and full-backs to deliver good crosses. At that point you can start having more control and show what you’re about.”

Resilience. Patience. Adaptability. Experience. But there’s one more key ingredient in Johnson’s approach.

"You can’t make somebody fitter overnight. You’ve probably done most of your tactical work,” he reasons.

“But you can give the lads confidence, and our supporters can give them confidence. A player playing with confidence, you can get 15, 20 per cent more out of them than one playing with fear."