Trials and tribulations frustrate Mowbray

TONY Mowbray does not have a monopoly on frustration, but he is alone among managers in voicing his growing disaffection as forcefully and, for Hibernian supporters, as alarmingly as he did the other day.

The Englishman's revelation that he feels suffocated by Scottish football - with its implicit suggestion of his coming departure - will have had followers of the Easter Road club reaching for tranquillisers in an attempt to reduce the panic. But, in the circumstances, the sensation of imprisonment that prompted Mowbray's singularly candid comments is not entirely surprising. Nor should it be taken for granted that his defection is imminent.

Every managerial position, including those at the biggest clubs, carries in-built impediments, but these tend to be exaggerated at those institutions where financial imperatives have a lower ceiling.

In Mowbray's apparently deepening disappointment, however, economic restraint is not the only factor. An accumulation of trials and tribulations - and no little misfortune - has left him, like Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, worried about his future.

Mowbray's, though, is not the only future that has caused him some despondency. The Derek Riordan affair is one of a number of situations that has troubled the manager.

Despite the striker's frequently- expressed desire to remain with Hibs, it is understood that his agent has already assured the Easter Road directors that no amount of money will be enough to retain his services.

Mowbray himself hinted at this recently when he said, with undisguised bitterness, that "I keep hearing that Derek wants to stay here, but I see no evidence of it." In addition, the player has been left out of the team on occasions when it would have appeared to observers that they could ill afford his omission.

This could easily be construed as the manager's method of reminding Riordan that he is not indispensable. Mowbray is also said to have been upset earlier in the season, when he was given a touchline ban by the SFA which he felt was unreasonable.

The lengthy absences of several of his most influential players through a variety of injuries have been another burden. The unavailability of Guillaume Beuzelin, Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson has, in effect, torn the heart out of his recognised strongest midfield for most of the season.

His frustration over this adversity was most keenly felt on the occasion of the Tennent's Scottish Cup semi-final against Hearts just 16 days ago. Mowbray, in common with everyone else at Hampden Park that afternoon, realised that every member of his seriously weakened team would have to excel himself to have a remotest chance of holding their powerful neighbours at bay.

Given Hibs' pre-match difficulties, the 4-0 defeat was not as shocking as it would normally have been. But it did offer a jolting reminder of the distance Hearts have put between themselves and their great rivals in the matter of spending power.

New-found prosperity at the neighbours' place tends to highlight the comparatively moderate means of the less well off and is almost invariably a source of annoyance.

This is not to suggest that Mowbray is resentful of his rivals' financial resurgence or embittered by his own club's reluctance to keep up with the Romanovs, although he has been irritated since he took the job by Hibs' lack of proper training facilities. Climbing into mini-buses in search of a practice field in the Edinburgh area has never been his idea of ideal preparation.

But he has also been aware since the start of his directors' determination not to allow their debt to reach an uncontrollable level and of his own annual budget and accepted the reality of the club's economic situation.

Having significantly reduced their liabilities last year, the Hibs board will reveal further progress in that direction in their next annual return, and Mowbray's budget will be increased for the second successive year.

This will not be enough in itself to chain him to the gates. As he said in an interview in these pages some time ago, he regarded four years as a natural length of stay at the club. He is about to complete two and his impressive work in his first managerial appointment has made him desirable to others.

But, at a time when other clubs would not entertain him, Hibs offered him a chance and Mowbray's current disenchantment is unlikely to interfere with his gratitude. Barring an irresistible offer, it seems more likely than not that he will be around for at least another season.

Taken from the Scotsman