Lee Johnson explains Kyle Magennis decision as Hibs boss bemoans lack of quality final balls

Hibs manager Lee Johnson admitted his side’s 2-1 defeat by St Johnstone was a ‘hard one to take’, as the visitors roared back from a goal down to consign their ten-man opponents to a third consecutive defeat.

Headers from Nicky Clark and Stevie May cancelled out Mykola Kukharevych’s first-half opener for the hosts, with Kyle Magennis seeing red 20 minutes from time for two bookable offences. A win would have kept Hibs third no matter the other cinch Premiership results but instead they are likely to slip down the table by Saturday night.

Speaking afterwards, Johnson admitted his side had been guilty of poor decision-making at times during the match, which also saw four VAR checks on the technology’s debut in the Scottish top flight.

“Games last 96 minutes and you have to make good decisions for 96 minutes,” Johnson said. “We made very good decisions in the first half and were the dominant side. We got our spirit of attack and press back. Where we fall short on too many occasions is that final ball. I remember seven or eight occasions where one well-executed pass leads to a simple chance. Inevitably that will make the difference to where we finish this season.”

Lee Johnson reacts during Hibs' 2-1 defeat by St Johnstone

Discounting last weekend’s defeat by Celtic, the Easter Road boss warned that he was seeing too many instances of his side falling down at the end of a passage of play. On too many occasions this season Hibs have dominated without taking their chances.

“There’s been too many games now, if you look at the three games we’ve lost barring the Celtic one. where we’ve had a lot of chances to execute the final ball. Then you’re always at the mercy of a momentum swing; whether that’s a key decision like a sending off, a mistake or a piece of individual brilliance. Up to 70 minutes if it had been two or three nil everyone would have understood. The longer you go the more opportunity the opposition have to turn the tide.”

Johnson accepted that fans would be questioning his decision to leave Magennis on the park with the midfielder on a booking and potentially tiring on his first start in more than 12 months but the Hibs boss explained his thinking.

“The natural question is whether I should have taken Kyle off earlier. It was something that was strongly considered but we have the luxury of live GPS by the side of the pitch and Kyle was our second highest output in terms of consistent metres per minute. He is also a fantastic player. I wanted to keep him on the pitch.

“It was a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ scenario. He has made a bad decision on the back of not playing in 13 months and being too keen to get the next goal. He is gutted, he is devastated. You would be; I have been in that situation myself as a player. And that's where you need your team-mates, that's where you need the boys to rally round and nick a 1-0 win and defend with their lives. That's the disappointing thing, we haven't been able to hold on to that and conceded pretty quickly and pretty tamely on two occasions."