Strange subs, home form, misfiring strikers - 3 talking points from Hibs 1-1 Dundee United

Hibs passed up the chance to go second in the Scottish Premiership with the Easter Road side only able to draw with Dundee United.

Christian Doidge drew a blank against Dundee United but will hit the goal trail again soon

While the result extends Hibs' unbeaten run, a largely decent performance didn’t produce three points and although Benjamin Siegrist was in top form for United, the hosts were guilty of passing up a number of good chances prior to Luke Bolton's injury-time leveller.

Strange subs

Jack Ross made two changes; bringing on Drey Wright for Kyle Magennis on 65 minutes and Alex Gogic for Melker Hallberg on 71 minutes.

On paper, the substitutions made sense: Magennis was understandably tiring and United boss Micky Mellon had altered his tactics to take advantage of that but bringing on Gogic for Hallberg seemed to have a negative impact on Hibs as they went deeper and the Cypriot was booked after just five minutes on the park and was possibly lucky not to see red.

While Gogic was not to blame for Hibs conceding a late equaliser, perhaps bringing on Stephen McGinn for Hallberg would have helped Hibs maintain the upper hand and see the game out for another three points.

Ironically, Gogic had a free header on goal from a corner and had it gone in, the Easter Road side would almost certainly have gone on to win and I wouldn’t be writing this article, but given he was most likely brought on as an enforcer, the yellow card stymied his impact.

As for Drey Wright replacing Magennis... the former St Johnstone man's best performances for Hibs this term have come in the middle of the park and in Jamie Gullan, the hosts had a player on the bench more comfortable with playing on the left.

Like Gogic, Wright was not at fault for United equalising but a different change may have affected the outcome of the match.

Wright / McGinn for Hallberg and Gullan for Magennis may have allowed Hibs to maintain the upper hand and hold on for the victory.

Home, sweet home?

Hibs have won plaudits for their away form this season but their home form hasn’t been quite as impressive. True, they’ve only lost one league match at Easter Road and have held Celtic and Rangers to draws, but they've also only won twice - against Kilmarnock on the opening day of the season, and Hamilton in October.

It’s hard to point to a lack of fans as being a factor – more than one opposition manager has spoken in the past about the crowd anxiety that permeates through Easter Road when visiting teams go a goal up.

Hibs have performed well at grounds that have declined to pipe in fake crowd noise – Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Hamilton, and Alloa to name a few – but that surely isn't the explanation (although given the virtual Easter Road crowd’s tendency for a crescendo of roars at deeply inappropriate moments, it might be worth turning it off for Wednesday night’s game against St Mirren as an experiment).

If Hibs can sort out their Easter Road form then they'll be a formidable opponent home and away. They just have to identify what it is that isn’t quite clicking in Leith.

Firing blanks

Who’d be a striker, eh? Despite scoring 17 goals between them in all competitions so far, with at least one more game to be played in the Betfred Cup, the whole of the 2020/21 Scottish Cup and half of the league campaign to be finished, the knives were out for Christian Doidge and, to a lesser extent, Kevin Nisbet on Saturday night.

The latter has already answered those who questioned if he had the capacity to make the step up to the Scottish Premiership while Doidge is on course to at least replicate, if not better, his tally from last season and will likely post better numbers with this campaign set to go the distance and not be curtailed in March.

Both players had their chances against Dundee United but found Benjamin Siegrist in inspired form, particularly in the first half. In the second period, both could have found the net had it not been “one of those days”.

The key takeaway is the amount of chances the team created. That neither Doidge nor Nisbet found the net against United is not cause for concern and if the Welshman had bigger hair he may well have got a touch on the cross from Magennis that led to the opener.

Stats suggested that Hibs had 119 attacks against Micky Mellon’s side with more than half of them deemed “dangerous”. On another day, Hibs might have been three or four up by the break.

Doidge in particular is the type of striker who creates a hatful of chances for himself and, more often than not, takes at least one of them.

Against Alloa in the Betfred Cup he feasibly could have scored five goals rather than the one (and a half) with which he was credited. It was the same against United.

It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see one or both of them on the scoresheet against St Mirren on Wednesday night, assuming Hibs maintain their high level of performance. It’s hard to imagine Jack Ross settling for anything less than a footballing lesson against his former team, especially after his post-match remarks on Saturday.

Doidge and Nisbet will hit the goal trail again soon and fans should appreciate them while they can.

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