Michael Weir: Why I can’t work out what team Hibs are supposed to be right now

Hibs found the going tough against Livingston. Pic: SNS

Obviously there’s a massive panic among the supporters because of the performances and the results. We’ve dropped too many points already this season and we’re not playing well at all. It’s simply not been good enough.

The way football is nowadays, pressure gets cranked up on managers a lot quicker and more intensely than it used to, particularly at a club the size of Hibs. But for me the anger and the concern from the supporters is totally justified because it’s been a really poor start and we’re not showing any sign at the moment of heading in the right direction.

We were too passive against St Johnstone and allowed them to get back into the game after twice taking the lead. And against Motherwell on Saturday, we didn’t show up at all and looked very fragile. We looked like a team who were just waiting to lose goals, and that’s exactly what happened. There was no purpose or conviction to our play. We never really looked like taking anything from the game.

My main concern is that we don’t seem to have the right balance in the team at the moment. That might come further down the line when the manager gets all his summer signings into the side but, looking at it at the moment, we don’t seem to have a backbone to the team. We don’t look strong enough in the main departments.

The manager basically said the team were too soft on Saturday, and that’s one thing you don’t ever want to have thrown at you as a player, but if you look at that game at Fir Park, we did look really weak. There was no grit, no real leadership.

We also look like we don’t have a clear style of play at the moment. I can’t work out what type of team we’re supposed to be. I thought we were going to be an energetic pressing side but I’m yet to see it. If we struggle to impose ourselves on St Johnstone and Motherwell, it’s entirely natural that supporters are worried about how we’re going to cope when we come up against the stronger teams over the next month or so.

We’ve got some really big games coming up against Kilmarnock and Hearts and if we show the same level of weakness again, we’ll get turned over in those games. Although it’s not looking good at the moment, football can change very quickly. But we need to improve quickly and dramatically if we’re to get this campaign up and running. There’s so much pressure on the manager at the moment that the next few games have become absolutely vital for him. He needs to get some resilience into the team and, most importantly, he needs wins. It’s as simple as that.