Lee Johnson down on artificial pitches but insists Hibs are ready for Livingston turf

Hibs boss Lee Johnson doesn’t believe artificial pitches should be allowed in the cinch Premiership – but insists his side are ready to play their game on Livingston’s surface this weekend.

The turf at the Tony Macaroni Arena, along with the field at Rugby Park, has been a source of debate ever since its installation in 2018 with many considering it an unfair advantage to the hosts, who also train at their home ground.

“The surface can alter the speed of the game. Sometimes Livingston decide to water it and therefore it is quite slick and zippy. Sometimes they decide to leave it dry and it becomes quite slow,” said Johnson.

“If it is dry you have to use speed over the top. If it is zipping then you need to move the ball quickly, try and penetrate and find weak spots in the opponents’ set up.“We have worked on both. I’m not a massive believer in astro at this level. I don’t think it should be an option at this level, but it is so we have to deal with it.”

Livingston and Hibs will battle it out at the Tony Macaroni Arena this coming weekend. Picture: SNS

Though the preparation has been meticulous, Johnson and his coaching staff have decided against having the players train on the artificial surface out at the Hibs Training Centre for fear it’ll sap their energy ahead of Saturday’s 3pm fixture.

“We’ve had a big conversation about it. We could have trained on the astro all week. I think the study is that it saps the legs fatigue wise an extra 20 per cent compared to grass,” he explained.

“We could have trained on astro to prepare the boys. But then you’d have had three days, one on grass, one on our astro and then another one on a different astro, plus the 20 per cent extra fatigue. So you either reduce the load or just get on with it knowing you could be going into the match day with 20 per cent more done the day before.

“So we decided to stay on grass to have one hit on the astro and see how the boys go, make the five subs if there are some boys flagging, because tempo is a must for me.”

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