THIS month there are no match reports. Since the last column Hibs have played five matches, losing twice and drawing thrice. Hibs sit bottom of the Scottish Premiership and unless immediate decisive action is taken by the club’s owners, that is not going to change. Hibs are going down.
David Gray, after the latest defeat to St Mirren, is a man whose coat dangles by a shoogly peg. Hibs fans will always love him for his cup final winning goal in 2016, but one header what now seems like an eternity ago shouldn’t protect the Hibs manager from either criticism or from the sack.
The fault of Hibernian’s current journey towards the bottom of the abyss doesn’t lie with Gray at all—that journey began in 2021 when certain new faces joined the club at boardroom level and who have overseen the club’s transition from top four battlers and Hampden and European regulars, into the pathetic bottom of the league shambles that Hibs fans now endure watching.
However, Gray’s record as manager is pitiful. He has won eight matches out of 29 as boss, 12 of those games have been defeats. Hibs fans see nothing with the current manager and setup to suggest that things might improve. The team cannot defend, has a dreadful goalkeeper, is lightweight in midfield and has shot-shy strikers. The side is also cursed by bad luck—add together all of these ingredients and you get the same bitter concoction that Hibbies were forced to swallow in 1998 and in 2014—relegation.
Should Gray be relieved of his duties during the international break, that would in no way harm his legacy as a legendary Hibs player.
Franck Sauzee managed the team and failed to win a league match in 2001/02, and was sacked. This in no way sullied his reputation as a club legend in Edinburgh. Pat Stanton, Bertie Auld and John Blackley didn’t exactly set the heather alight as managers at Hibs, yet remain loved and respected by the fans. In more recent times, Mixu Paatelainen, John Hughes and John Collins all held the hotseat, with varying degrees of success, yet the very mention of their names today makes Hibbies remember them all with great pride, for different reasons. Collins won a cup, Yogi had one excellent season in charge, Mixu was a safe pair of hands. Gray arguably has greater legendary status than all but Stanton, yet that shouldn’t make him unsackable. The real fault lies with those who appointed him.
Maloney, Johnson, Montgomery, Gray. The club legend should never have been put into position of being the successor to these other three embarrassing, incompetent managerial appointments, nor should he have been expected to clean up their mess, either. For in the current Hibs crisis, one thing is clear; since Jack Ross was sacked just before a cup final in 2021, Hibs have been utterly dreadful and, to all intents and purposes, Hibs fans have been watching the exact same garbage under different managers since then. Hibs fans deserve better.
Now, a club owned and run by people who probably hadn’t even heard of the club until 2016, much less known anything about its traditional, devoted fanbase and their fair, realistic expectations, might, at boardroom level, not be hostile to the spectre of relegation. They may welcome the financial reset that dropping down a division can bring, the parachute money, and, crucially, the ability to release most if not all of the current overpaid, underachieving playing squad, via relegation release clauses. In that sense, going down could be just the medicine the sick body of Hibernian FC needs, but not a single Hibs fan wants that.
Most Hibs fans’ ire is now directed at boardroom figures and seemingly pointless
backroom staff, from Malky Mackay to David Marshall. Most Hibs fans now hope that the Black Knight Group will, somehow, be able to step in and offer a remedy to the club’s current woes. By ignoring Foley’s investment group of late, Hibernian’s custodians—and remember, that’s all that they are—have shown themselves to be either arrogant or incompetent, possibly both.
Hibs can still make a roaring fightback, finish in the top six and to reach Hampden again, maybe even to qualify for Europe, but that won’t happen without immediate change, both on and off the park.
It’s time for the club’s custodians to stand up and be counted. A thoroughly demoralised Hibs fanbase waits for their beloved team to be half-decent again. No Hibby should be dreading a Saturday afternoon.
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