Calderwood tells defence to tighten up

The Easter Road team beat St Johnstone 3-2 on Wednesday but have now conceded nine goals in their last four games despite remaining unbeaten during that run.

A Hibs side spearheaded by Garry O’Connor, Junior Agogo and Leigh Griffiths has scored at a prolific rate, but Calderwood warned their positive form could come undone with more slack defending in Glasgow tomorrow afternoon.

“The level of goalscoring at the minute is top, top level,” said Calderwood. “I think the three of them link quite well together, either as a pair or as a threesome. That’s quite exciting. Obviously at the other end, it leaves us with a little bit of an imbalance.

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“I don’t think we can afford Rangers the opportunities that St Johnstone managed to work really well against us – I think we’ll get punished. If we don’t have the ball, we have to defend and when we do have the ball we’re all out, in essence, thinking about attacking. There are certain games when we’ll have to do different things and in certain situations players will have to do things that they’re not accustomed to.”

The Hibs boss shuffled his defence on Wednesday night, with Victor Palsson moving to right back and Ian Murray swapping roles with Paul Hanlon to partner Sean O’Hanlon at centre back.

“It’s a work [in progress] with Ian playing at centre half. It’s a partnership that hasn’t been seen together in the league but it wasn’t brand new and gives us good flexibility.”