Derby win undermines Hibs' protestations of modesty

STUART BATHGATE
AT EASTER ROAD

HIBERNIAN not only dented their city rivals' title hopes with this well-deserved win, they also undermined their own claims of humility which followed it.

Tony Mowbray and Kevin Thomson may have felt obliged to make the usual meek noises about being ill equipped to stay the pace, and the manager was no doubt correct to say that, with a relatively small squad, the club could be "two injuries away from a crisis". But the fact remains that, despite only minimal personnel alterations over the summer, Mowbray has made a sustained improvement to the side compared to last season, when they finished third.

He has done so barely unnoticed, such has been the attention paid to Hearts' breathtaking start to the season. However, by becoming the first team to inflict a league defeat on the Tynecastle side, Hibs closed to within four points of the top of the table - not the easiest position in which to remain inconspicuous.

"I'm not going to say we're going to win the league or split the Old Firm, but we can show we're a force," said Thomson, the deserved recipient of the man-of-the-match award. For his part, Mowbray knows the constraints within which he is working better than anyone, but his claim that there is "too big a gap to bridge" between clubs such as Hibs and the Old Firm is looking less plausible the longer the season goes on. True, Rangers and Celtic have more money than the rest, including Vladimir Romanov's Hearts, but at Ibrox at least, cash is no longer being converted so readily into results.

Given that state of affairs, it is perhaps time that the clubs outwith Glasgow stopped being so deferential to the big two. Hibs, as Thomson no doubt knows, are already splitting the Old Firm, and, if they keep playing with the confidence they showed on Saturday, have a realistic chance of remaining in that position until the end of this thoroughly unpredictable SPL campaign.

Week after week when manager of Hearts, George Burley would insist that finishing third would be a great achievement , and it is significant that the statement from the club announcing Burley's departure talked of aiming for the Champions League rather than squeezing into the UEFA Cup - a clear indication of the extent of Romanov's ambition. What Hibs fans deserve to know now is how ambitious their own directors are.

The policy of speculating to accumulate got a bad name in the game thanks to the bout of overspending in the late 1990s, and, with a debt of more than £9 million to handle, the Easter Road directors are not about to throw cash around rashly. Yet businesses which focus too rigidly on cost control do nothing but hamper their own growth.

At present, there is a good chance that a modest investment by a team in Hibs' position can bring about a decent return. Adding to the squad during the transfer window could be the difference between getting into Europe - and earning a reasonable sum from that - and ending as a top-six also-ran.

With Rangers faring so poorly at present, however, the Hibs board may be tempted to take a chance on not adding to the squad, and hoping that the current employees can continue to do the business on the pitch. Certainly, the 14 who were on duty against Hearts did exactly that.

There was not a lot between the teams in a poor first half, but the opening stages of the second saw Hibs press more strongly as they sought to break the deadlock. John McGlynn, Hearts' interim manager, claimed his side's defence looked like withstanding the onslaught, but the dismissal of Edgaras Jankauskas for a second bookable offence in the 62nd minute made the pressure irresistible.

Mowbray brought on Ivan Sproule to make use of the extra space, and the tactic soon paid dividends when the Irishman got behind the Hearts defence and squared the ball to give Guillaume Beuzelin a virtual tap-in. Before McGlynn had time to react to the loss of a goal, his team were two down when Garry O'Connor beat the offside trap to latch on to a chipped free-kick from David Murphy and rattle the ball past Craig Gordon.

Hearts had come back to force a draw after being two goals and a man down against Falkirk, but this time there would be no way back against far more resolute opponents. Burley, in common with Mowbray, always insisted his playing reserves were shallow, and that was never more evident than when McGlynn could do no more than throw on Calum Elliot up front in an attempt to chase the game. The teenage striker shows promise and is hard-working, but he is not the type to turn the game around.

Of course, it should not have been left to the fringe players. The real problem for Hearts was that most of their key campaigners, notably Julien Brellier, Paul Hartley and Rudi Skacel, were well below their best.

"We didn't even turn up," said Gordon. "There can be loads of reasons for that, but as players we've got to take the responsibility to get ourselves up for games. It is only one game - one setback in a long season.

"That's football and we've got to bounce back. Mr Romanov spoke to us after the game and that was pretty much his message."

Taken from the Scotsman