Mickey Weir: I'd have loved Premier Sports Cup format - but I see where Hibs boss is coming from

No offence to the club’s new manager – but I would have loved that as a player!

As a footballer you want to get into competitive games right away. You would never say as a player you’d rather play a friendly than a match where something is at stake. It gets the competitive juices flowing right away when typically it takes about three or four pre-season matches to get fully warmed up.

If you get a couple of good results then it boasts the confidence early. I would think the majority of supporters would prefer competitive games as well.

It’s certainly changed days from when I was playing. It’s part of the overall trend across the sport where so much football is being played every year. There’s barely a break from it. You would never have got something like this format before. Instead, you’d be getting ready for a season by playing just six or seven friendlies. Going straight into competitive games for me would've been great.

That being said, I don’t have any problem with Johnson saying what he did. Managers will always have their viewpoints. He’s the one who sees his players every day and he'll know whether a couple of them were maybe undercooked and not fit enough to go into this situation. You're never going to please everybody.

I think it did work against us in this instance. I'm looking at the squad, the number of players we've brought in and the type of players we've brought in, and I reckon they've been caught out a little. It's hard coming into these expectations right away against opponents going full pelt.

As for the administrative error in the match against Greenock Morton which sealed our fate, well, the type of thing that shouldn't be happening at a professional club. It was a mistake and it cost us. The supporters are rightly concerned because it shouldn't be happening at our football club, but we also need to move on now. We've got a big game on Saturday and there's no point dwelling on it.

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