ALTHOUGH, like Don Quixote, he hopes never to tire of tilting at windmills, Tony Mowbray, the manager of Hibernian, has recognised the seismic shift in Scottish football's landscape brought about by Vladimir Romanov's multi-million pound investment in Hearts.

After claiming third place last season, Mowbray argued yesterday it would still be a significant achievement because of the new financial circumstances which prevailed this season in the Scottish Premier League for Hibs to finish fourth. He alluded to Hearts as part of the game's "big three" along with Rangers and Celtic.

As he prepared his players for today's Edinburgh derby at Easter Road by feigning amnesia over Hearts' 4-0 win at Hampden as well as the 4-0 loss at Tynecastle in August and a 4-1 defeat on the same ground in January - he preferred to accentuate the positive aspects of his side's 2-0 win against their oldest rivals in October.

Mowbray's innate sense of honesty prevented the manager from playing a straight bat to spun deliveries about the financial advantages Hearts have enjoyed under Romanov's ownership.

Just as he responded candidly to Sunday newspaper reporters last week when asked about the possibility of moving from cash-strapped Hibs to former club Middlesbrough should Steve McClaren be appointed as the next England manager - it was a hypothetical scenario which made disproportionate headlines - so Mowbray refused to shirk analysis of the consequences of his local rivals' new found spending power.

"With the financial restrictions that all clubs have outside the top three in this league, fourth position is what we're all shooting at," confessed the Hibs manager. "So to finish fourth would be some achievement. I don't know how transparent the spending of Hearts will be, maybe that will become clear when the accounts are produced."

The speculated figures over a hefty five-figure weekly wage packet which helped to keep goalkeeper Craig Gordon on a new deal at Tynecastle until 2009, undoubtedly caused a few jaws to drop at Easter Road, not least in the manager's office.

"Some figures were quoted on somebody's salary recently across the city and, if they were right, then there probably is a big three [in Scotland]," Mowbray reasoned.

"It's not rocket science. Why are Chelsea winning the Premiership? Why did they also win it last year when they hadn't won it for 50-odd years? It's self-explanatory. They've got the most money. Mr [Roman] Abramovich comes along and suddenly they've won it back to back."

Only too well aware of football's harsh financial realities, Mowbray was far from whingeing. He was simply acknowledging the different economic circumstances which enabled Hearts to keep Gordon for another three years while Garry O'Connor, who scored one of the goals in that 2-0 success six months ago, had to be sold to Lokomotiv Moscow before the Scottish Cup semi-final. "It was only three or four months ago that certain people were saying we could win the league," Mowbray reflected.

"Then we get a few injuries and suddenly we can't."

Quality resources, of course, cost a price Hibs can't pay. While Mowbray can field a side capable of beating all three members of the 'big three' when they have their strongest 11 players available, injuries and suspensions mean the Easter Road club are also quite capable of losing to Dunfermline and Falkirk.

"Maybe it is possible to buck the trend and be better than the teams with money," he added. "We need to strive to do that. Can we break the monopoly of the people with the money? Let's hope so. For long periods of the season we were right in among it points-wise."

Having awarded a fistful of contracts to his young guns, Mowbray expects his players to perform like men next season.

He says they'll be earning adult wages and wants them to produce accordingly. It will be time in season 2006-07 for this Hibs side to come of age.

"Next year, they'll have had two years under our present staff. I'm very conscious of the fact that when I write out my team sheets we have 11 or 12 under-21 players whereas the rest of the teams tend to have the bottom three subs are under-21.

"I feel that's a positive thing because we're out there competing, getting results.

"Playing more experienced teams is an experience in itself, whether we win, lose or draw. We've given new contracts to a lot of those players and they'll be getting men's wages next year. I won't be talking about a young team any more. I'll be expecting them to produce and hopefully they'll expect themselves to produce."

More immediately, there's the challenge of holding off Kilmarnock and Aberdeen to finish fourth and look forward to playing against continental opposition in either the UEFA Cup or the Inter-Toto Cup.

Since revenge isn't a word which figures in Mowbray's vocabulary, he won't dwell on that last meeting with Hearts. Instead, he'll recall the previous success at Easter Road.

"Home advantage is something that we will look forward to," he said. "We had a positive result and performance against them last time they were here and we'll be looking for similar this time. That was a typical Hibs performance, full of energy, drive and good passing football.

"Ivan Sproule coming off the bench, getting in behind them, cutting it back, Garry O'Connor getting the ball down and smashing it home. I don't see any reason why this won't be another similar performance."

Taken from the Scotsman