Mickey Weir: Sacking Lee Johnson now isn't the answer - but the manager himself must improve

Victory at the weekend has relieved a bit of pressure on manager Lee Johnson after many were calling for his head in the wake of the Edinburgh derby defeat.

Even after the weekend it’s three wins in 12 games and that’s far from good enough. But you've got to be careful with what you wish for. From Jack Ross to Shaun Maloney and now Johnson, sacking managers constantly just isn’t the way forward. We need to get the club back in a better place and if it that has to take two or three months then that's what it has to be.

Having said that, results have to improve soon because expectations will never change at a club like Hibs.

Johnson is confident and he believes in what he's trying to do and that's good for a manager. You need a confident manager. But at the end of the day it's a results business. A manager can say they want to do this or that, but if the results aren't there then it doesn't matter. And the manager has to put his hand up and say he hasn't got it right.

Manager Lee Johnson celebrates after Hibs defeated Motherwell at Fir Park on Sunday. Picture: SNS

Earlier in the season we went on a four-game run and then we went to Dundee United. We didn't start well and didn't perform in the first half. But he's then making two changes at half-time and five across the course of the game. I thought to myself, 'you've got a team that's just won four games in a row, in football sometimes you just have to let players sort themselves out'. If they’ve won four games in a row then they're not a bad side. You then, as a manager, need to give them the chance in the next game to turn it round. That's the experience of the managers I've worked with, anyway.

The team just unravelled after that because there's no consistency in the line-up. If you're a player going through a sticky spell then you want the opportunity to play through it, because it happens to every player. As a manager you need to know who your best players are, who you can trust, then have faith that over the course of the season the cream will rise to the top. Some of the changes earlier in the season I really couldn't explain them.

I don't see partnerships in the team. There are none, really, throughout the side. It's felt like that since the start of the season. If you're going to win football matches then you need consistency of selection. You can't be changing players every week. You need a settled side to trust. Then you need to let them play through bad periods and work through it. It just doesn't work to bring in four or five new faces every week. We seem to be making changes for the sake of making changes, and it shows.

It also stops players from retaining match fitness and match sharpness. So when they’re dropped back in after a long period out then it’s an uphill battle. Johnson was right to be scathing about the players recently, but he also needs to look at himself.

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