Hibs face Aberdeen at Easter Road on Saturday in the second of three consecutive home games and Pat Fenlon is keen to continue to club’s fine league run before concentrating on the League Cup quarter final against Hearts next Wednesday.
Speaking to Hibernian TV, Fenlon also explained the current injury situation regarding Michael Nelson and praised the contribution of new signing Paul Heffernan. He said: “There was no doubt that the three back-to-back home games of Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts would be a big test for us. We’ve started quite well and we were disappointed that we didn’t hang on for three points on Saturday against Celtic, but I thought we did enough to earn the point we got out of the game. Now we are coming into a game where probably everybody has tipped Aberdeen to be as close to Celtic as anyone else, so it is another real test for us and then after that we obviously have a big derby game on Wednesday.
“It was three great games to look forward to and we’ve had one and we did okay in that and now we want to look forward and get three points and get to the semi-final of the cup. That would be a great 11 days for us – but we are going to have to work hard to achieve that.”
Fenlon admits centre-half Michael Nelson is likely to be ruled out of Saturday’s match with a severe facial injury suffered in the closing stages of the Celtic match, but he highlights the strength in depth within the squad and says that is the hallmark of every successful team.
He added: “It wasn’t looking great with Michael’s injury, to be honest. He was in a bad way, he has improved a little bit, but it looks like he is going to be out for a little while I think. We don’t know if it is a fracture, he is not that sore in the area which is unusual, but again he has taken a fair wallop there and we’ve had a look at the DVD and he has taken a fair bang. Hopefully he won’t be out for too long, but we are quite fortunate this week because James (McPake) has been back for a while training and Jordon (Forster) is back and has trained all week – so we’ve got a good bit of cover there at the moment.”
Paul Heffernan scored his third goal on Saturday since joining from Kilmarnock at the end of the summer transfer window and Fenlon believes that signing the Dublin born striker was a great move.
He continued: “Paul is a good player and a different type of forward player. James Collins is different to him, Rowan Vine is different again, young Danny is a different type of striker as well and would probably play off the centre-forward, but I think Paul has got a massive amount of experience in the game and you can see that in his movement and his cleverness, particularly in building the play up and holding the ball up and linking the play but also around the box where he isn’t lightning quick but his movement gets him into the right areas and he is a very good finisher. Over the course of the season I think he is going to be a fantastic signing for us.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
