Hibs caught on the rebound

HIBS gave further proof against Aberdeen last night that they have rediscovered the art of goalscoring. Unfortunately for them, they have simultaneously forgotten some of the rudiments of defending.

It was, to be fair, a marvellously entertaining match, and one in which Franck Sauzee’s side showed no end of character to fight back three times from being a goal down.

For much of the second half the game looked like ending in a draw, and no-one could have had genuine cause for complaint about that, but in the end, a penalty two minutes from time proved Hibs’ undoing.

Referee Hugh Dallas gave the award after a tussle in the box which seemed to involve Aberdeen’s Derek Young and Hibs’ Ian Murray. Darren Young’s spot-kick was pushed out by Nick Colgan, but only to the on-rushing Darren Mackie, who slammed the ball home.

It was only the second away win of the season for Aberdeen, a fact which threw Hibs’ predicament into starker relief. It is now over three months since they won in the league.
Sauzee, whose patience has been tried repeatedly since he took over as manager at Easter Road, could scarcely contain himself after the match. “How is it possible to give four goals away to Aberdeen?” he asked.

“It’s too easy to play against us now. Every time we wait to lose a goal before starting to play football. I’m tired of this. Tonight was a nightmare about concentration: when Nick saved the penalty, how many Hibs players helped him?”

Sauzee had a fair point there, as he did, too, when he compared the patience of the Easter Road fans with those at his old club, Marseille. Instead of being applauded after a result like this, apparently, the French players would have to cower in the dressing-room until three or four o’clock in the morning until angry fans had dispersed.

But perhaps the Hibs fans are patient because they have seen some improvement. This game could have ended 3-3 without Aberdeen having any cause for complaint, and both sets of fans would have gone home happy.

It was perhaps typical that Ulises de la Cruz was blamed in some quarters for failing to pick up Mackie at the penalty, but also put in a splendid evening’s work in attack. It was a cross from the Ecuadorean which caused the first real moment of anxiety for the visitors, an eighth-minute goalmouth scramble which Peter Kjaer tidied up at the third attempt.

Yet, while Hibs created the first real chances, it was Aberdeen who drew first blood. Robbie Winters ghosted behind Paul Fenwick, collected Jamie McAllister’s flighted ball, and passed low to Eugene Dadi. The latter had ample time and space to dispatch the ball into the bottom right-hand corner.

Hibs might have been stunned by that strike, but they showed the character to counter at once. Aberdeen failed to clear a high ball, and Paco Luna calmly shot home.

Before half an hour had been played, Aberdeen regained the lead. Judging either Dadi or Winters, or both, to be offside from a diagonal chip into the box, the Hibs defence stood still. Dadi and Winters did not: the former dived and missed; the latter side-footed the ball home.

If that incident led one to deduce that one team knew how to play to the whistle while the other did not, the Hibs equaliser eight minutes before the break disproved the notion. When Luna regained his footing after a slip, he slid a ball to De la Cruz, clearly onside to all but the Aberdeen defence. De la Cruz’s cutback was shorter this time, and Derek Townsley slammed it into the net.

“The first half was like two boxers hitting each other without any defence,” Aberdeen manager Ebbe Skovdahl summed up later. “We looked very fragile in midfield in the first half, but we managed to correct that in the second.”

They did exactly that, and regained the lead with another ball behind a static defence – this time to Winters, whose pass into the box was dummied by Derek Young, then sent into the net by Cato Guntveit.

A touch of tension at last crept into proceedings, and referee Dallas had to issue a series of yellow cards. Hibs introduced new signing Jarkko Wiss as they went in search of the equaliser and Derek Riordan was given his chance in place of Eduardo Hurtado, but it was a man who had been on from the start, Luna, who provided the leveller, heading home a corner after yet another foray from De la Cruz.

It was all marvellous stuff for the neutral, if somewhat nerve-wracking for fans and for managers.

If the seventh goal had come with longer to play, the odds would have been that Hibs levelled. As it was, they had the time to mount several attacks, but to no avail.

Taken from the Scotsman