Marc McNulty and Christian Doidge 'can spark European run' for Hibs, says Stephane Omeonga

Marc McNulty made his second debut for Hibs on Saturday

Stephane Omeonga believes the return of Marc McNulty can help drive Hibs towards European football, predicting he’ll strike up a prolific partnership with top scorer Christian Doidge.

McNulty rejoined the club on a hectic transfer deadline day in which striker Flo Kamberi joined Rangers as Ibrox midfielder Greg Docherty headed in the opposite direction, while St Mirren defender Paul McGinn signed an 18-month contract.

Omeonga and McNulty spent the second half of last season in Edinburgh on loan deals from Genoa and Reading respectively and, admitted the little Belgian midfielder, he’s delighted the pair have been reunited in green and white for the remainder of this season.

The return of Marc McNulty can help push Hibs on to greatness, says Stephane Omeonga

Joking he’d asked the club to bring in McNulty again, he said: “Obviously we lost Flo, which left us with just one striker. So it’s good to have some competition for each place in the team.

“Marc is a great player, he scored a lot of goals last season. If he does that again, we’ll all be happy.

“I see a good partnership with Marc and Doidge. They look good together. You could see that against St Mirren, even though we didn’t score in the second half. They did well together.

“They still have to get to know each other – but something good can happen there.”

After a 2-2 draw against St Mirren in which Hibs had to come from two goals down, Scott Allan and Doidge - with his 15th goal of the season - cancelling out earlier strikes from Conor McCarthy and Tony Andreu, Omeonga conceded Jack Ross’ players are now play catch-up in the race for Europe.

Sixth-placed Hibs now sit four points behind Livingston, who clocked up a fifth successive win in beating Motherwell, eight off Aberdeen with the Steelmen 11 ahead.

“There is a huge gap between us and the teams in the European places,” admitted Omeonga. But I think we have to believe that we can win every game. That’s the only way.

“The priority is to find some balance. You can win some games, even on a bad day, if your team doesn’t concede goals. Obviously it was difficult to lose two early goals against St Mirren. But we showed something to come back.”

The fact Hibs are, in Omeonga’s estimation, a more attack-minded side under head coach Ross, offers hope that they can reel in the clubs currently in front of them.

Omeonga, who supplied the cross for Doidge to head home the equaliser against the Buddies - the striker’s sixth goal in his last five matches - said: “This Hibs team is more attacking than last season. There is more freedom to get on the front foot and go forward.

“The manager is great in that he trusts us to play – and knows that better games will come. Last year I played wide, usually on the left so it was quite different.

“The first thing I wanted about this season was to contribute more to the attacking stats. It’s nice to get one assist. Hopefully I can get more – and some goals.”

Martin Boyle’s knee injury sustained while on international duty with Australia at the start of last year meant Omeonga didn’t get the chance to play with the flying winger last season but he insisted he’s already seen how important a player he is going to be in the run-in.

“He’s very good, very useful to the team,” he said. “The last 12 goals, I think he was involved in ten of them. He’s going to be a huge player for us if he keeps his form. It’s only good for us.”